April 28, 2015

It’s hard to believe, but our time in Asia has almost come to an end.  I can’t believe how fast time has gone…having already been gone for 2 months seems impossible!  This past week went even faster because we had such an amazing time.

We ended up taking a flight from Bangkok to Krabi to save some time.  The bus ride was about the same price as a plane ticket, so we decided to get here quicker and save ourselves 8 miserable hours on a bus.  🙂

Krabi was absolutely beautiful!!!  I can’t say enough amazing things about how beautiful the water, beaches, and surrounding area are.  The first day we just hung out at the hotel pool and on the beach.  We got out into the town for dinner and Hayden was ecstatic to learn that Thai Pancakes are a local street food.  We have been telling him that we’re only eating local food, so he jumped right on that and told us that he would be eating local pancakes.  His favorite with topped with Nutella and sprinkles.  lol  That night there was a beautiful sunset (although it turned out that EVERY night had a beautiful sunset!)

The next day, we went on a speedboat tour of several islands along with two snorkeling stops.  I have been dreaming of these beaches since we put Thailand on the itinerary, so this was my highlight.  Luckily, the beaches did not disappoint.  I wish that I could post a ton of pictures because they were all amazing.  The water color was unbelievably blue in the deep areas and completely clear green/blue in the lagoons/shallow spots.  It looked like it was straight off of a postcard.  We went to Bamboo Beach, Maya Bay (where the movie The Beach was filmed) and Phi Phi Don to spend time on the beaches.  After that, we went snorkeling at Money Bay and another spot, but I can’t remember the name.  There were a ton of fish and coral, it was like being inside of a fish tank.  Even Hayden loved the snorkeling and up until this point, he has always been terrified of it.

The next day, we went on a kayaking/swimming/elephant riding trip near Ao Nang (where our hotel was located).  The kayaking was very nice, even though it was a little hot for us with the sunshine.  We got into the mountains and it cooled off in the shade.  When we were kayaking through the mountains, we were able to see monkeys and gibbons up in the trees…it was pretty cool to see.  After we finished kayaking, we had a good lunch on the beach before we took off to go swimming in a local river.  The river was a little chilly, but fine once we got used to it.

I was so proud of Hayden, he even jumped off of the rope swing into the river!  He was nervous at first, but I told him that I would do it if he did.  He ended up loving it and jumping over and over!

Our last adventure for the day was elephant trekking through the jungle.  We were pretty excited about seeing the elephants and they certainly were impressive.  Our elephant was very nice and friendly.  The Mahout (trainer) was super nice and we took a nice long ride through the jungle.  She got to stop and eat some bamboo and grass as we were going along.  I had read about trainers that used hooks/pokers to train the elephants, but they didn’t do any of that.  He did have a hook with him, but he totally used voice commands that they said that they only use the hooks in the case of an emergency or impending danger to either the elephant or a person.  Hayden has a great time and even got to ride on the front of the elephant.  It was a little nerve racking for me because he wasn’t strapped in or anything, but he did great and loved it!

We will be going to Phuket tomorrow for our last day in Asia before we fly out to Africa.  The hotel where we are staying has a water park on site, so that should be fun for everyone!