Thailand for Christmas

For Christmas this year Mark and I went to Thailand for 10 days.  This was a trip that Mark has been wanting to take, but after watching "The Impossible" a couple of years ago, I've been a bit hesitant.  It's a great movie by the way, it's based on a true story of a family who were separated during the Tsunami  in Thailand 10 years ago.  

     Anyways. after talking to several other people in Doha, they all told me how wonderful the country is and we opted to go for Christmas this year.  It didn't take long for my somewhat jittery nerves to dissipate and for me to begin being extremely excited for our trip.  I found an amazing tour early on in the planning and began to be even more excited than Mark for our trip.  Below are some of the pictures we took throughout our trip.  We had an amazing time and would love to go back some day. 

Christmas gift to each other was our trip to Thailand.  We traveled to Chiang Mai, Koh Samui, and Bangkok during our time in Thailand.

We started our trip in Chiang Mai.  Mark surprised me and had the hotel decorate our room for my birthday! :) 

Tuk Tuk...one option of transportation in Thailand

Us on the Tuk Tuk heading to dinner

We learned the first night that when something on the menu says spicy, that it is far too spicy for our palette. Neither of us could even finish our meal.

Our tour of a lifetime (which I have officially named) was day 2 of our trip in Chiang Mai.  Although it was not labeled a private tour, it was just Mark and I with the tour guide, Billy, and our driver.  We started our tour going to the local market and Billy showing us different foods and buying some for us to eat throughout the day.

After the local market we went to an Orchid Farm, which was absolutely beautiful. It was interesting to see different orchids that were different ages/sizes.  

We then headed to Tiger Kingdom.  It was a bit scared when we first got there and when we entered the cages with the tigers.  We opted for the package to be with the big tigers and had minimal expectations going into the cage.  I thought we would just pet one tiger and that would be it.  Fortunately, we pet several and although we were both scared and a bit hesitant to pet the tigers at times, it went really well and no harm was done.

They told us they liked their belly rubbed, but I was pretty scared to attempt to rub it like I would our dog, Mandy, growing up.  Mark was holding the tail and I was surprised the tiger didn't mind.

I love these pictures, especially the fact they make it look that we were in a "disagreement", but in all honesty, I'm freaking out a bit inside.

On our way to a temple cave, our driver stopped at this local stand that was making and selling bamboo sticky rice. This is a winter dish and was absolutely fantastic.  It tasted so good, I wish we had bought more when we stopped. It was interesting to see them cook it.  The sticky rice is mixed with coconut milk (yum!), beans, and a little bit of sugar.  They put it inside bamboo and then cook it over a fire, then remove some of the bamboo pieces.  When you eat it, you peel back the bamboo to enjoy a log of yummy sticky rice.  

Mark and Billy as we are waiting for our sticky rice to get done.  Billy was a great tour guide and we enjoyed spending the day with him. 

First temple cave...we walked through a couple of caves during our tour that had a temple inside. 

Temple #2 

Enjoying our bamboo sticky rice while enjoying the views at the top of the hill.

We stopped for lunch and again enjoyed the views of our surroundings. 

It was time for our white water rafting portion of the trip.  This beat up truck pulled up with the raft on top and we thought we would help take the raft off and go down the hill into the river when it arrived.  Mark jokingly asked when it pulled it if we should hop on top, and to our surprise they said yes.  This was probably the more unique method of transportation we took in Thailand.

Getting ready for our white water rafting adventure

Although it was a bit slower than we what experienced over the summer in Salzburg, and we had far fewer people on our boat, the views were gorgeous along the route and we enjoyed it very much.

To end our tour of a lifetime, we rode elephants throughout their elephant farm.  It was an exhilarating experience, but was quite frightened that I would fall off and get stepped on by my giant elephant.

Bringing our baskets of bananas to feed the elephants

We were practicing how to get on and off the elephants and giving them commands, as they are spoken in a special language.  

Our journey riding the elephants bare-backed begins...this was a great way to end our tour!

We bathed the elephants as part of the tour.  Both Mark and I made sure to pay special attention to not get too close to their feet, incase they got up. 

Billy prepared some local fruits for us to enjoy for a snack before driving back to our hotel.

When we returned from our tour, the Sunday Market down the street from our hotel had just begun.  We immediately changed and headed out to enjoy the local foods and products from the Thais. This is where we truly began to see how far the dollar truly goes in Thailand.  We bought quite a bit of stuff, but paid very little in total.  We had a great time!! 

Mark was so excited to find his ratchet belts for dirt cheap...we've been looking on our trips for them, but hadn't had any luck.

Sushi heaven...YUUMMMM!!! 

This was our breakfast while in Chiang Mai and loved how she only made her smoothies with real fruit and no syrup or anything.  These were the best smoothies I had our entire trip. The smoothies cost about $1 USD.

During our last full day in Chiang Mai, Mark and I walked around the Old City and explored the temples and checked out another local market.

We visited the only silver temple in Thailand.  Unfortunately only Mark was able to go inside....

We went to the temple for their 5 oclock prayer and witnessed the giving of the alms (traditionally happens in the morning, but is when people give gifts to the monks) and their prayer ritual.

We couldn't think of a better way to end our time in Chiang Mai than to experience our first Thai massage, which we did for a whopping total of $6 USD per person.  

Green curry is one of my favorite Thai dishes

We landed in Koh Samui and thought their shuttles from the airplane to the airport were cute.

Mark continued the theme of having our room decorated for my birthday. :) 

Mark unfortunately didn't like his "fresh" ribs as much, but my fresh red snapper with Thai spices was delicious. 

View while eating breakfast each morning...pretty great way to start the day.

It was common to have Thais cooking meat and corn on the beach to sell.

We enjoyed several massages during our time in Koh Samui while listening to the waves crash and enjoying the beautiful view.

We saw tons of Christmas trees throughout Thailand. :)

Christmas Eve <3

Christmas Eve Dinner -  Mark had steak and I had Barracuda...both were excellent and cheap.  This meal was around $25 USD for the two of us, and was considered one of our "more expensive" meals. ;) 

We found a local church that had English services to celebrate Christmas. :) 

We were fortunate enough to Skype with both of our families on Christmas.  The 12-13 hour time difference made it a bit more challenging to figure out a time, but it all worked out well.  The connection was a bit fuzzy, but was wonderful seeing and talking with the family. Christmas doesn't feel the same when you are away from family and somewhere tropical, but enjoyed the Christmas trees and music playing everywhere we went. 

Thai cooking class - I can't wait to try this at home now! :) We made Pad Thai, Stir fry, and Red Curry.

We went to the street market for dinner and I discovered the best spring rolls I've ever tasted in my life, and they were a total of $1.  Anytime we ate street food, we spent less than $10 USD for the two of us to eat dinner.

Both of us were book worms on our trip and finished a couple of books each during our time.  It was so relaxing; I love sitting by the pool/beach and reading a good book.

We were leaving Chiang Mai and heading to Bangkok to finish our trip.

This was by far the most shopping we've done in the past 2 years...but we loved it! The prices were cheap and it was just fun to look at all of their stuff.  When we arrived in Bangkok we immediately dropped off our luggage and headed for their weekend market.  It was MASSIVE and took several hours to go through. Mark is holding my dresses as I continued to shop in the picture above.

It was so nice to have strawberries again!! They are hard to find in Doha and when you do they are extremely expensive.  So, I tried to get my fill in Thailand.

Mark and saying, "just one more tie?" He found GREAT deals on belts and probably bought a total of 10 for no more than a total of $30 USD. We felt like such high rollers, hahah!! :)

The Bannon's recommended this restaurant to us and was a great recommendation.  It was delicious! 

Mark had Thai wings and I had Massaman Curry.

Our hotel room in Bangkok was quite small, but couldn't complain about paying $25 USD/night.  Our bathroom was by far the funniest though...we walked and and saw the shower head was right when you walked in.  The picture above is me looking at the shower head trying to figure out how this was going to work.  The main thing to remember was to get the toilet paper out, or we were going to have a soggy roll to use.

Day 2 in Bangkok we used the ferry quite a bit to get to the different sites and enjoy the views.

Palace

Enjoying the ferry ride with this handsome man

We climbed the top of Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn). The climb down was far scarier than the climb up.

I'll be honest we were a bit hesitant at first to go see the reclining buddha, as we weren't sure "what the big deal was about it". It didn't take long for us to see why this was a tourist attraction when we looked inside and saw this MASSIVE buddha statue.  The pictures don't do justice, but we were in awe with its size.

We took the ferry on our last night in Bangkok to enjoy the sites lit up.  IT was a gorgeous night and we enjoyed the ride.  We originally thought the ferry turned around after about 20-25 minutes, but an hour after continuing down the river we realized were were definitely mistaken.  Luckily a worker came up to us, as we were the only tourists on the ferry at that time, and told us to get off at the next stop because the ferry was nearing the end of its route for the night. She informed us another ferry would take us back in would be there in a few minutes.

We got our picture with Santa Claus in the Columbo, Sri Lanka airport on our way back to Doha.  :) 

We had a fantastic time and is on our list of places we would love to travel to again someday.  I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel like we have this past year.  

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  I'm looking forward to what 2015 has in store for us, as it will be another year of adventure and transition.