Paradise and elephants!

hey guys! Thanks for following along! :) after spending a couple days in Ko Lanta I can see how people decide to just sell all of their worldly possessions and move to Thailand. Ko Lanta is a really cool easy-going beach town where you can get to know people and you sort of feel like the theme song of Cheers ("sometimes you want to go, where everybody knows your name...") is always in the background. It's a great place where you can get to know the people and talk to them. It's a refreshing change from super commercial and congested Ko Phi Phi.

We stayed a couple days in a bungalow on the beach before moving across the street to a nice room with air conditioning and a balcony. It's not on the beach but at least it's cool, comfortable, a bit cheaper and the room isn't super hot (we only had a fan) and doesn't smell like sewer. It's funny how your standards change after a while!!

In Thailand they drive on the left side of the road...which means that when you are coming up to someone it's right hand to right hand (unlike left to left back home). It also means you need to reprogram your brain to which way to look when crossing the street...it's always a bit of an adjustment but I think I am ok again! Ko Phi Phi had no roads so it was easier there to forget where you were!

Yesterday we went on an amazing snorkel trip to Koh Rok. It's like a little piece of paradise! The island is a national park so it's protected and since it's closed 6 months of the year it's quieter than other tour programs. I have been very fortunate in that I have snorkelled to some of the top destinations in the world such as the great barrier reef in Australia and the red sea in Egypt so it's pretty impossible to top that (the coral was mostly dead or brown), but the Koh Rok beach was gorgeous. the sand feels like flour under your feet and it's never burning hot; the water is crystal clear and the shades of blue and turquoise are phenomenal. There are also wild iguanas walking around; all we have are squirrels and sometimes raccoons! We spent the day snorkelling, swimming and suntanning before coming back to a gorgeous sunset. I am a little peachy from the sun yesterday so I am trying to take it easy, but it's tough when it's so gorgeous outside and we only have a few more days to soak up the sun!

Today we went elephant trekking; we really wanted to go to Pai in the north to visit an elephant sanctuary but it didn't quite work out as it wouldn't make sense to spend a couple hundred dollars to be out of the way for a couple days. We had an opportunity to find an elephant park that seemed to take good care of the elephants, where it was cool and comfortable for them, and they didn't have any dumb elephant shows. It was sooo cool! We both even got to ride on its neck for a bit too. I sort of felt like horseback riding bareback, only in slow motion! We got to feed our elephant after too and cuddle with it, which was awesome. Overall it's been a great couple of days! We are planning to stay in Ko Lanta for a few more days and then spend a couple days in Railay beach, where it's also supposed to be gorgeous, before spending some time in Bangkok before flying home.

Here are a few photos: Koh Rok beach; trying to cuddle with a wild iguana, a beautiful sunset on our beach; cuddling with our elephant "Nookyiay"; and riding the elephant in the forest.

M xoxo