Sa wat-dii Khrap ('Hello' in Thai)

Hello from Thailand. It has now been 10 days since leaving home for this beautiful country. It certainly has not fallen short of being anything but beautiful.

We spent the first 3 nights in Bangkok near Khao San Road, which is absolutely insane. Nathan nor I had ever seen anything like it and we were itching to get away from there as fast as we could. It's basically a road where all the backpackers/travellers go for cheap booze, massages, food, dancing, neon lights, etc. Definitely not the Thailand I had envisioned; however we did take advantage of the three dollar foot massages .

We took an overnight train and 3 hour bus to make it to Krabi, which we then took a longtail boat to Rai Ley beach. We fell in love with the area of Rai Ley more everyday. We stayed there 3 nights and met plenty of travellers, mainly from all over Europe. We've found that among the tourists we, as Americans, are an extreme minority. 

We are now in Ko Phi Phi, which is our first island visit. While there are lots of tourists here, it has some incredible beaches. There's plenty of restaurants, bars, entertainment right along the beaches. So that I don't bore you with too many details, I'll just list out some of our highlights so far:

- A two hour kayaking adventure discovering new beaches near Rai Ley

- The FOOD, of course. There's carts EVERYWHERE with authentic Thai food for about a buck or two each dish.

- Beautiful hikes along the coast line

- Playing beach soccer with the locals 

- Watching fire dancer's for nightly entertainment

- Touring many different Buddhist temples

We've truly been having a wonderful time here and everyday have been reminded of how blessed we are that God has enabled us to be able to have this adventure together. We are also getting more and more excited about the upcoming year in Korea. It's still a bit surreal/scary that we will be gone from our families and friends for so long, but it's something that we'd regret later on if we let the opportunity slip away.

I've posted some pictures below to give you a sense of what we have come across in our day to day travelling ventures.

                                 A view of Khao San Road where we spent our first 3 nights.

                                             The 45 meter standing Buddha in Bangkok

                                            Inside of the Golden Temple

                                                   A temple across the river.

                                                 View of Bangkok from the top of the temple.

                                         Our beautiful yet exhausting kayaking adventure.

                                      LOVE my nook in Ko Phi Phi... thanks Jim & Deb!

                  1st viewpoint in Ko Phi Phi... after climbing what seemed to be millions of stairs

                                            Ahhh... a little break from a mid-day hike