The World Seen By Sam: March 23-24, 2015 (Spring Break in Krabi, Thailand)

Spring Break was with the girls, Sydney and Austin. We spent the first part of the trip with the girls in Bangkok and then over to Krabi. To get to our hotel from Phuket we took a boat through the ocean blue passing islands that had sheer cliffs. Since it was low tide we couldn’t dock at the hotel. We had to wear water shoes and walk through the water to the dock on the sand.

The hotel was on the water, didn’t have a swimming beach but was a very nice hotel. That day we hung out at the hotel by the pools.

The next couple of days we did a few different activities. The first activity was kayaking through the mangrove forest. During our kayak through the mangrove forest, which was one of the largest in Thailand, we saw monkeys on mangrove roots and a snake jumping out of the water. We also paddled to a lagoon and swam at a beach. I liked seeing and paddling through the jungle of mangroves.

Our next excursion was the Phi Phi Islands day. We were out on the boat practically all day. We snorkeled and sight seed on the boat. The islands we saw aren’t like normal islands. These islands were made out of limestone and had sheer cliffs with vegetation growing off of them. The limestone island also had stalactites, which is are limestone formations that take hundreds of years to form. The water was green in some places and blue in others, but was all warm. During our snorkeling we saw live coral and thousands of fish. Also while snorkeling a monkey dropped into the water for a quick moment and then climbed up. I had never had a monkey swim with me. It was funny. My favorite part of the Phi Phi Island excursion was the snorkeling because I liked swimming and diving down in the warm blue water with live coral.

Saturday we sweated buckets climbing to Tiger Temple which was way up there on top of a mountain. We climbed 1267 steps. At the top there were several gold buddhas. We took pictures at the top and were able to view the cliffs and the outskirts of Krabi below. I was exhausted going up to the temple. Going down came much quicker. It was worth it. Austin’s legs were especially worked, because at the bottom her legs were shaking like crazy. The next day we were all sore!

That night Coco came to our resort, Coco the baby elephant. Coco performed some tricks that I hadn’t seen before. One of them was was him twirling the hula hoop on his trunk. I also enjoyed seeing him bounce up and down on all fours. Sydney says that the elephant is my “spirit animal”.;)

On our last full day in Krabi we rode elephants. This wasn’t any bare back riding. We were on a bench on an elephant’s back. Our elephant had ivory tusks that curved in towards his trunk and were big. It doesn’t quite prepare to Patara Elephant Farm in Chiang Rai because there you are immersed in the whole elephant experience from feeding it to bathing it. One of my favorite parts of it was seeing the other baby elephant show after our elephant trek. This elephant had a new trick up it’s trunk and was playing the harmonica from it’s trunk and screeched and yelled loudly! It was funny.

We finished our activities off in Krabi by go karting. These go karts were extraordinarily fast 4 stroke go karts. They have 560 cc motor, which is pretty fast! These tires didn’t have a whole lot of grip but the kart was a fast four stroke. I started off second in the race and passed Syd. Then after that I lapped mom twice and Austin several times. Syd was pumped after, like we all were. It was fun!

Our last day we spent time at the pool and then took the boat back to Phuket. This trip Syd was being so funny. Syd’s friend Austin it was fun to have her with us. It was a fun spring break.

Today we flew to India first flying from Bangkok to Delhi then Delhi to Varanasi. The guide that was with us to our hotel told us a little about Hinduism and the Ganges. I learned that their 3 main gods and the way to remember this is G for generator, the creator who is the god Brahma. O is for operator who is the controls the world and this is the god Visnu. D is the destroyer, the destroying god who is Shiva. Varanasi is the spiritual capital of India and Hinduism.

All throughout India cows are sacred and so you will find cows walking around and laying in the middle of the road. Driving to our hotel we drove around many of them!