เกาะ (koh tao)

    So as I have said before finding the motivation to keep writing blog posts is getting harder and harder as my life here turns to routine, and everything in Thailand starts to become everyday normal stuff. But I'll try to keep it up. This month I'm sorry to say I only have one update, but it will be a good one. So... This last week I went on vacation (I know, I'm in Thailand. You would think that was vacation enough.) The family that is hosting me found out that my birthday and the two other exchange students' birthdays are all with in a three month period of each other. They decided to give the three of us a nice trip to an island close to Bangkok, called เกาะ (koh tao). I won't even try to explain what anything looks like; I will just leave it all up to the pictures..

      First we left Udon Thani (my cit) on an overnight train to Bangkok, and I had to sleep on a top bunk. Let me just say that if I was a few inches taller and a little bit more overweight then I would not have fit.

The website is still not letting me rotate pictures. If you rotate this one left you  will see my friend Joao  on the top bunk sleeping away.

   Once we reached Bangkok we had a few hours before we boarded the eight hour bus to the place where we were to get on a ferry. In that time we went to the big mall (mostly window shopping), and we relaxed at the house of my host mom's sister. At the mall we got an interesting experience...

We went to a fish spa!!!

I hope you can see all the little fish, but let me just tell you it was something everyone should try at least once.

Here is my picture to prove that I have tried it...

    Then we went to the bus pick-up point, and found that after we had checked in we had another two hour wait. Luck for us there was a "walking street" (basically a market on the street) very near. We walked the whole street, found some cool stuff, and then found a nice coffee shop to wait the rest of the time.

The many different clothing and item sellers along the street, but this was only part of the "walking street".

    Finally it came time to board the bus, and we headed off on another overnight trip. We finally got to the port for the ferry really early in the morning, and we found out we had another wait ahead of us.

The bus ride. As you\can see some of us were pretty tired.

    After the last weight (of mostly naps) we finally got to board the ferry and take another two hour trip to the island, but once we reached the island all the traveling and waiting we well worth it.

Getting on the boat... 

The trip over (after it had stopped raining)

One of the smaller islands that surrounded the main island.

    The first day we got there in the early afternoon, so we checked into our resort/hotel and walked to the beach. We basically relaxed the whole day and went out for a nice dinner afterword.

The water on the beach was really shallow for like fifty meters or more away from the beach.

And it was so clear you could see the bottom almost anywhere.

The three exchange students with our host mom.

These three ladies are my host mom (left) and her two high school friends. The one on the right lives on the island, while the one in the middle lives in Bangkok and set up the whole trip.

     The next day we woke up at an easy time, and we headed to the most famous part. The place was not connected to the main island, but was made up of three smaller islands. We spent the whole day there. We got to relax, play a little American football, and snorkel. It was amazing! That night we ate barbecue on the beach, and we went for a little walk and saw fire!

No we can't walk on water, but we did our best to make it look like we could.

The water was so clear, we did most of our snorkeling right there.

Get ready for the throw....

And there it goes... I hope somebody was ready to catch it...

The island had a nice relax space...

We all finally got tired, and we decided to head back...

That's right, a fire twirler. He was pretty good and even broke out double sticks a little bit later.

     After what seemed like a long weekend (even though it was only two nights and three days) we headed back home. The trip back took just as long and was just as entertaining as the trip to the island. I won't bore you with recap of the trip back, since all you basically have to do is take what I said about the trip here an reverse it. But once I got home I was really tired, and I just recuperated the whole day... I hope you all enjoy the pictures and details. Please keep on looking for my next update.

Chinese New Year

       So I think I have probably said sorry enough for not "posting in a while". I would hope most viewers would understand that this blog is written by a teenager who finds himself in a position that laziness easily creeps upon him. So I hope all will forgive me from now on for any tardiness on updates to my blog. Now that being said, I hope I can make it all up to you by putting up some pretty cool pictures on this post. By the title I have posted you can safely assume that this blog is about the Chinese New Year, but it is about how I celebrated it and not how my city traditionally celebrates it. Instead of hanging around the city, enjoying its festivities like I can with any other festival, I went on a little vacation with my first host family and the two other exchange students in my club. We went to a place right next to the border of Laos, on the outskirts of a city called  Ubon Ratchathani. I don't know how to explain it, so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. But first let me show you at least one picture of my city decorated for the Chinese New Year.

This was at the entrance to the festival. They had these giant masks that anyone could come up and put on. We thought it was hilarious.

This was right after the entrance. Just a cool looking picture.

      So the trip started out with a long drive. We finally arrived at our "resort" and settled in. But we didn't stop for a rest; we went right into our first activity. Our boat/hike tour.

It started with a long hike down to the shoreline.

Then our boat took us on a nice tour of the surrounding area first.

On this tour we saw many fisherman from both Laos and Thailand out on the unsteady rocks.

This was the view pretty much anywhere we looked from the boat.

We even got to see a few small waterfalls here and there.

Even my first host parents were having a great time that day.

I even got a great patriotic (for Thai) photo shot.

The beginning of our hiking tour. A great shot if you ask me.

The rocks went on and on, on both sides of the river.

But that didn't stop me finding some of the coolest places within those rocks.

What this place was really known for is the shapes that mysteriously show  up all around. Like here, you can see good 'ol Micky.

This place is said to be in a music video of a famous Thai singer. Now, since most of you don't know any famous Thai singers, I feel confident in saying that statement is probably true.

   After the great tour, we all went out to eat, and then after went back and settled in nicely to the resort. The next morning we woke up before sunrise. INTERESTING FACT: Ubon Ratchathani is the first place to see the sunrise in Thailand. So what did we do??? Well of course we headed out like good little campers, scrambled over the rocks by the river, all just so we could see the first sun rise of the day in Thailand. But it wasn't all for nothing, we got some great pictures as well...

Well let's just start out with the best one...

The guys on the trip...

The sun coming up over the trees on the other side of the river.

Well the sun was up, so time for one last picture and head back...

On the way we see this cool phenomenon. 

      After we got back, we packed up and headed on our way. But my host mom and dad had more in store for us yet. The brought us to an elephant showing company (Yes, Another one!) Sadly we got there right at the end of the last show, and they weren't giving out anymore rides for the day. They said they would be open again the next day, but we all made a consecutive decision that we were all tired and just wanted to head home (That, and we had done it before). But that being said, we made sure to not leave without photos...

Got to love these cool elephant pictures...