Mountains and beaches, two of my very favorite things and Thailand has plenty of both. The weather was not the best for my visit and it did not matter in the least. Even though we didn’t get to do some of the stuff we had planned, like the island boat tours and snorkeling, but I did get to spend some very relaxing disconnected time with my daughter in a beautiful place surrounded by the sounds of the ocean and beautiful tropical plants and complete relaxation.
In addition to relaxing by the pool and ocean, we spent a day doing a tour of the island that consisted of several sites and included a very interesting but crazy drive through the mountains at high speed and with the kind of driver that liked the accelerator and the brakes. We saw things like their Big Buddha, which you can see from all over the island as the statue is huge at over 145 feet tall. They say this is the best sunset spot for the island of Phuket but we went during the day, the view is amazing so I do believe that sunset would be incredible. Getting up there was painful, probably not for most, but for Megan and I both it was a challenge. Even though we went up at separate times due to my state of awe from the view at the bottom. Megan went on ahead of me we both had the same clumsy climb up. I would love to be able to say it was treacherous and filled with struggle and more like a hike up wet stairs but no, it was stairs and it wasn’t raining, but we both fell going up. Megan apparently tried to take out an asian family and their small child as she fell hurting her upper leg and scraping herself somewhat. Me, well I fell by slamming my big toe into the stairs and dropped. I was able to catch myself before my face hit so there is that, but did some pretty serious damage to my toe. We laughed through the tears that we both fell going up and hurt ourselves and then we continued on with our day. The rest of my day was continued with a limp as I dragged my oversized toe along with me. My oversized toe joined us on our elephant part of the trip and I suddenly was very happy my toe didn’t hurt from being stomped on by an elephant. They are huge, I know I know everyone knows elephants are huge but still when you see them up close they are huge!!!! We were able to play with a baby elephant and we got a hug from a one year old baby that was bigger than us and we were able to ride on Lele with her trainer Tony, who by the way seemed more than little crazy. I have to admit I was very nervous getting on the gentle giant but did it anyway and so happy I did it was quite the experience. At one point Tony had gotten off and was just roaming around leaving us up on this giant totally vulnerable to whatever it decided to do. Suddenly she started backing up and dropping down, we thought or I did anyway, she was going to sit down which would have dropped us like a rock off the back, so that was fun and terrifying. We learned that Lele apparently needed to scratch her bottom on a rock so we only dropped part way and then on our way.
Chalong temples was included in this day and it was beautiful, our timing was nice as we got to see a ceremony of a monk becoming a monk. This consisted of music and a lot of people carrying the monk around the temple (this happens 3 times) and then some prayers outside and ended with a ceremonial throwing of something that looked like wrapped gifts out into the crowd. There were a lot of them and everyone was quite happy and yelling hoping to get these wrapped items as he threw many many handfuls. I felt like I was witnessing something quite magical and even though I wasn’t 100% certain of all that was happening I knew it was very very special and I was very grateful for our timing and this experience. The timing I found interesting is that immediately after he stepped into the temple it started to rain, we ran for cover and stayed there for about 10 minutes until it stopped. Not sure why I felt that the rain had anything at all to do with the event I just witnessed however I do believe it did and that just made me smile.
We were both tired by the time we got back from this long day consisting of other stops as well and my toe was now quite large and throbbing, the evening consisted of room service, rain and my foot elevated as I wondered how this would impact the rest of our trip. I am happy to say that other than walking slowly and with a limp it didn’t impact the trip too much and as I finish this blog more than a week after being home it still hurts and I can’t bend it.
The days following were spent getting more Thai coconut oil massages, once daily in fact, and they were absolutely incredible at 300 baht ($9) for one hour. The thai massages in an outdoor hut with ocean rolling in, breezes, birds chirping, rain falling some days, smell of coconut oil and a massage therapist that seems to understand the human body completely was an experience that may have ruined me for spa massages in America forever. Yes, they were that good!!!
The pool and swim up bars were just beautiful and we found ourselves at the pool closest to ocean so we could swim and enjoy the sounds of the ocean. Megan enjoyed so much she found herself napping. Coconuts and mango daiquiris, books and great conversation, playing in the waves of the ocean (me getting knocked down by the waves), laughter, slow simple moments that I will treasure for a lifetime.
Lean Into The Jouney 