Taylor Family Vacation in Thailand!

January 9-17, 2010

So we finally convinced my parents to come to Asia! Eric and Kellie and I had already spent some time in Bangkok but the family vacation was happening in Phuket. We were all on the same flight from Bangkok to Phuket so met up at check-in. I think this was the earliest I ever willingly showed up for a flight! Our flight was until 2pm, but my parents actually made it into Bangkok late last night so we met them at the airport at 10am. It was so exciting to walk into the airport with my husband and my big sister and see my parents sitting right there, I kept waiting for the alarm to go off... but it didn't, because it actually happened!!

So we had lots of time to kill in the airport but fortunately Bangkok airways has a great lounge for their guests to use so we had comfy chairs and free snacks! Please keep in mind that this domestic flight was only $50 round trip per person... and we got to use the lounge. Thailand should re-write the definition of hospitality for the rest of the world :) We had lunch in the airport and Eric, Kellie and I were so happy to have Burger King!! My parents were too tired to care I think. It was very strange to go on vacation to Thailand and have more American products than we do at home... in Japan. Check out the burger sizes in Thailand: Hungry, Starved, Deprived!

By the time we arrived in Phuket my parents were pretty tired from traveling, although we had long travels to Thailand we only had a 2 hour time difference... they had 14 time zones to recover from! This is my parents waiting for us to get the luggage...

We got a van and made our way to the resort, The Royal Marina Boat Lagoon. Although it wasn't quite what my Dad thought he had booked it worked out great. We had a quick Italian dinner at the resort, exchanged Christmas presents and called it a night. As you can see, my very cleaver mother even brought a Christmas decorations!! She brought a Christmas Tree, it's just a little smaller than the one we have at home, and my favorite decoration of all time, Santa and the penguin! My Dad got a picture of me kissing Santa when I was really little, and needed an updated one...
On Sunday my Dad and sister checked out the local church while Eric and my Mom and I walked around Phuket, the plan was to get the lay of the land a little bit, but then I spotted a massage parlor... so we didn't get any further. My Mom had her first massage ever and loved it! She got a hand and foot reflexology massage while Eric and I stepped it up a notch and got a Thai massage. The only way I can think to describe this type of massage is... massage meets physical therapy meets chiropractor. I had no idea my back could pop that much and that so many joints in my body actually pop too. It was crazy, and felt oh soo good. While we were walking to the massage place a man approached us and tried to get us to go for a ride in his TukTuk (imagine that!) and we said no we were just killing time while someone was in church and we wanted to walk. After our massages we walked back to the church to meet Kellie and Dad and.. the TukTuk driver Alex. He asked if our friends were out yet... what a good salesman. When my Dad came out he showed Alex his GPS and asked if he could help us with some Geocaching, Alex said yes, so he was hired.
My Dad (and the GPS) lead the way and Alex drove... and eventually we found it! Alex was really confused why we came all the way from America to dig around in some rocks for a box full of key chains.. but he went along with it.
By this time we figured out he was a pretty cool guy and made plans for him to drive us around later in the week, he turned into our local guide. We asked him for a lunch recommendation and when he dropped us off at a restaurant he told us he didn't know where we should eat so he called his wife! She was right, it was a fantastic place for my parents to have their first Thai meal! The dishes ranged from 40-100 baht, 100 baht = 3 USD and everything was so delicious. I made one mistake though... when the waitress asked me if Thai hot was ok for my dish... I said yes. I ate a few bites and was ok and then I ate one of the peppers... which looked just like some I ate in Bangkok, but I lit up like a fire. Apparently it was kinda funny because lots of people were laughing until i started crying from the pain... I never thought that could actually happen from 1/2 a pepper!! Eventually my throat and mouth just went numb so that made it a little better. About 4 hours later the feeling came back. No more Thai Hot for me!! After that Alex took us back to the resort, we stopped at the "super market" (not quite) on the way back and good supplies to cook dinner... but then we got back and found the room service menu and saw how cheap it was and we ended up ordering dinner after a nice long dip in the pool.

Monday we called Alex up again and made our way to the beach! We went to Patong beach which is one of the most famous beaches in Phuket, but it was unbelievably crowded! Eric and I didn't really want to pay to sit on a lawn chair on a beach that was so crowded you could hardly see the beach, so we walked around the town a little bit while my parents and Kellie soaked up the sun! On our walk we saw some Japanese models doing a wedding gown photo shoot on the side of the road, I felt bad for them out there in the heat, but at least they are in Thailand!
When we got back to the Beach to meet the fam we saw my parents, but not kellie. They were looking up... and so we looked up, and we found kellie! She was pairasailing! The first time we went to Maui my Dad and I went pairasailing but kellie didn't want to, and she has been sad she didn't do it ever since, but now it has been fixed! She did it right of the beach, with the help of a guide who climbed up into the paraschute like a monkey and steered her around!
Tuesday was a busy day! My Dad really really wanted to get to Phi Phi Island while in Phuket so we asked Alex about it, and surprise surprise he had a company that would take us there, and cheaper just for us of course! So on Sunday we booked our tour, and today was tour day! We left early in the morning and took a speed boat tour of several small islands in the Andaman Sea around the southern portion of Thailand. Our first stop was Maya Bay at Phi Phi Island, this is where the movie "The Beach" with Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed. It was quite crowded with tourists.. but if you swam away from the boats a little bit it was so quiet and there were lots of cool caves, Eric and I swam out to a great little spot and sat and enjoyed an AMAZING view. The sand was so soft here, it was almost like flour. The water was so clear and beautiful and the perfect temperature, it was how I imagine heaven!

Then we made our way to the next stop, Monkey Beach! The highlight of the day for me!! Again, it was a little overcrowded, but I pretended the other people weren't there and that I had the monkeys all to myself, and it was fabulous! They were everywhere, and they were oh so cute! If you ever make it here, I highly recommended you slip the boat driver some baht and ask to stay longer, no one else will notice ;)

After they pulled me away from Monkey Beach we went to the next stop for snorkeling, the water was really clear and the fish were very vibrant... and little dumb. They kept swimming head first into people's masks and stomachs, and 2 of the fish bit Kellie (just a tiny little fish nibble). We had fun! Then we made our way to lunch, we filled up most of the table but there were a few empty spots and a guy that was on the tour alone came and sat with us, and guess what he was on vacation from teaching English in China! And even stranger, he teaches at the same school as one of Kellie's good friends from High-School who recently came to Beijing with his family and saw Kellie..... "It's a small world after all...." It was very bizarre.

After lunch we went to another Island, also very beautiful, also over crowded. We sat on the beach, and some people snorkeled and some played in the water, we just enjoyed the view, the pineapple and the shade of the umbrella. Unfortunately this was the final destination on our tour so we made our way back to Phuket after a wonderful day of exploring.

We ate the Indian/Thai restaurant at the hotel and unfortunately we all ordered Thai because the Indian food was so expensive (looking back, the Indian food was actually under $10/plate it just seemed exorbanent compared to what we could eat for). I spent the majority of that night up sick, I don't know if it was from my dinner, or from the severe sun burn I got on our boat ride. I put SPF 45 on prior to going out and 3 times while we were out... I think it must be the harshness of the sun at the equator combined with my skin being buried under several layers of clothes the past few months in Japan.

Eric and I finally convinced the family that we should look at what the Lonely Planet book had to say about things to see and do in Phuket. Before we had been going off of what we saw and what Alex recommended, which turned out to be pretty fantastic, but we figured someone else had already done a lot of searching, we should take their advise. It proved to be a great plan, we found the treehouse restaurant, actually called "Natural". This was my amazing lunch! When you are inside you would think you are in a tree house as the restaurant sits around a large tree and vines are growing all over the "roof" and walls. As we sat there my Dad posed the question, "Are there building codes in Thailand", it was a very unique place with delicious food!! We got a late start today, mostly because I was sleeping on the couch till noon and we were all beat from yesterday, so we didn't have much time in the day left. We visited a local temple, it was really exciting for me to show my parents because we see them all of the time, I felt like I was showing them a piece of Asian culture that I actually understood! Afterwards we went back to the resort and went swimming and then rested up for our big day on Thursday!

Thursday was Elephant Day!!! I was so unbelievably excited for this, and absolutely shocked my parents were willing (and excited) to go too! I had done a lot of research before getting to Thailand on which type of company to go with, sadly many of the companies that do Elephant trekking in Thailand (and probably anywhere in Southeast Asia) don't treat the animals with any kind of respect of good care. I found a company mutually recommended by several sites, and it was in the Lonely Planet guide. We had asked Alex earlier in the week to take us today and he sent Juilos to pick us up. Juilos didn't know where the place I wanted to go was, but he took us to the company he knew (that he was also wearing a shirt for). When we got there we discovered that it was a huge tourist area, there was a go-kart ride, a paintball arena, a shooting range, a monkey show, a reptile show, an elephant trick show and an elephant ride. I had a bad feeling about it as it was exactly the type of place I had been warned about supporting. I spoke my opinion but we decided to give it a chance since it came so highly recommended by locals. We bought our tickets and walked to the Elephant loading zone. The first thing I realized was that the elephants looked sad, and they were starled when the guns in the range next door were fired, then i saw that they had chains around their ankles, the chains were so tight that the fat had grown through the loops, I felt a little sick. The metal chairs for people to sit in on top of the elphant were directly on the elephants back, the hot skinny bars were digging in. Then they had to wake up some elephants to get them to take us for a ride so that whacked them with a shart metal hook... this is when I walked away and decided I would rather miss out on riding an elephant than support this. My family suppored me 100% at this point, so we got our money back and left. We tried again to show Juilos the map and the phone number and he took us where we wanted to go initially. Although I was so angry he took us their in the first place, I am actually thankful that I saw it. Now I know first hand that the stories online and in books are true, and I can spread the word. So please, if you ever want to experience Elephant trekking, just do a little research first, it's really not hard. When we got to the Kok Chang Safari location I knew it was all worth it! While the elephants had chains around their ankles when they were not on a trek, the chains were loose like a bracelet, enough to keep them from stampeeding down the highway, but not enough to harm them. They also had several layers of heavy blankets between the metal chair and their back :) We took of our shoes and climbed on top! Kellie rode a smaller elephant by herself, and Eric and I rode 46 year old Sai-yo, and my parens were behind us riding another elephant. We each had a guide, that clearly was responsible for the specific elephant. As we set off on our trek we saw the elephant clinic and several small houses where each of the guides lived, we waved to our guides grandson who was playing on the front porch. We set off, away from the road and into the densely packed trees. It was exactly what I was hoping for an it was truly fantastic. After the elephants got settled into our route (we chose the longest one!) the guides got down and walked along side the elephant, when they needed them to change directions or simply to pay attention (they were often distracted by eating the foliage) they would call their name and the command in Thai and the elephant would listen. Ocassionally they hit them with a tree stick, but not very hard, and elephant skin is quite tough. Seeing that the elephants were so well treated and loved by our guides made the experience even better. At one point Kellie's guide was standing with the elephant and staying behind the ear for shade, and he kept kissing the Elephants ear, it was so cute! Eventually they asked Kellie and I if we would like to get off of the chair and sit on the elephant the way the guide had been, and of course we jumped at the offer, and that is how we sat for the last 30-40 min of the tour. It was really amazing because when we got to an uneven surface if I started to slip around at all, Sai-yo would wrap her ears around my legs tightly to hold me in! It was pretty incredible. We made our way to the peak and had a breathtaking view of the ocean, we stopped for a few minutes and the Elephants had a break from walking and we took lots of pictures. Being there with Eric and my parents and Kellie on the side of a mountain in Thailand overlooking the ocean, on top of an elephant... I can't even try to explain it.
Eventually we made it back and the journey had come to an end. We then put our shoes back on and were getting ready to leave. Another elephant kept reaching for Eric with it's trunk, it was so startling and oh so funny. It's not everyday that an elephant trunk tries to get you while you're putting your shoes on!
Now that the Elephants had taken us on an hour long journey... it was time for them to get a delicous snack of Bananas, so we fed them. Sai-yo was so smart, rather than taking 1 Banana at a time and eating it, she took several and held them in her trunk and then walked away with them and ate them slowly in the corner!
After their snack they went and took a bath, probably mostly to cool down, the Elephants sure seemed to love it! This is Sai-yo getting her bath :)
All in all, we had a fantastic experience! I am so thankful we went and we supported a good company!

After our morning of Elephant trekking we went to Kata beach which came recommended by Ay, Alex's wife, she said it's almost as nice as Patong beach but has 1/2 the people. She was right, there weren't boat loads of people there! We were all pretty hungry so we wanted to get some lunch, nothing near the beach looked fabulous but Lonely Planet recomended a restaraunt up the highway a little ways and off the beaten path, so we set out to find it. Thankfully my Dad and Eric are good at reading maps, because it was tricky. What turned out to be the tricky part was not so much the map as much as the book calls the restaraunt "Gueyjah" and people kept telling us we were close, or we just passed it, but we never saw Gueyjah, finally a man drove his scooter along side us and showed us where it was... the restaraunt called "Red Chair" that was full of... red chairs! Gueyjah is Thai for Red Chair! The sign out front looked brand new, they probably gave it the English name so tourists could find it easier, not knowing that the travel books used the Thai name :/ By this point we were starving, between the 5 of us I think we had 7 or 8 dishes and probably 10-11 drinks... and it was still 400 baht, $12. Can you believe it??? It was amazing food too! The local food in Thailand is the way to go!

After lunch we headed back to the beach, I was still burned to a crisp from Tuesday so Eric and I skipped out on the sunshine. We instead found a nice air-conditioned indoor starbucks and sat and sipped our coffee and played phase-10. It was this trip to starbucks that I realized my Toffee Nut Latte was $7 us... and I bought it anyway. If I had access to Starbucks in Japan I absolutely would have passed, but I figure a few starbucks a year, even at $7, I'm still way ahead on the starbucks budget than I was in Tempe. After we finished our game we had about 45 minutes, what to do... what to do? Answer, massage! We went and got a 30 minute foot massage and the met up with the family. My 30 minute foot massage was less than half the cost of my starbucks that I consumed in 10 mintues.

Juilos picked us back up and drove us to the top of the mountain to see the big Buddah! Another aspect of Asian culture we could explain to our parents! It was still under construction so we walked around the base of it and saw several posters explaining how it is being built. It was pretty large, but not as big as some we have seen in Japan.
From the big buddah we went to visit a waterfall, Juilos said he only knew of one so he would take us there, and it was pretty close to our hotel. When we got there we learned that it's the largest waterfall in Phuket, good work Juilos!
If you know anything about my mom beyond her first name, you probably know that she LOVES waterfalls, even after an incredibly long day. The fall was only 300 m off the road, or so someone says, so we set off on the path to check it out. About a third of the way down the path we questioned the measuring device used, but it was still beautiful and very worth it!
In case you didn't figure it out by now... Thursday was a LONG day! By the time we made it back to the room we could hardly chew our dinner that we cooked. We were all in bed rather early!

Friday was our last day in Phuket :( In the morning we called Alex (he loved us by now) and he dropped us off in another area of Phuket we had yet to explore. We walked through an open air market and saw the way that kellie grocery shops. The difference between how the produce comes in Beijing and in Japan is drastically different. She buys her grocerys from an open air market and has big bags full of a mixture of stuff when she heads home. At our grocery store, many of the produce items are individually wrapped in plastic and styrofoam, and then the cashier places it in a second plastic bag before placing it in my grocery bag! Good thing we recycle, because the lengths they go to keep things clean is rediculous! At the market I bought a coconut to drink... but it tasted like dirty ground water, so we gave it away.
This was the most interesting stand... the dangerously hot peppers, a variety of nuts, and if you look at the bowl at the bottom right side of the photo, cockroaches!! Don't worry we didn't buy any! ^^^^^^^^^

We walked around the town and explored more and then we wanted to get to a restaraunt that Eric found in Lonely Planet so we followed the map. We stopped at the post office to mail a birthday card to Amanda (I always miss her birthday, and 3 of the past 4 years I have been out of the country). We also enjoyed a splendid coffee from the coffee cart right ouf front, I highly recomend the street vendor coffee, it was 20 baht, which is less than $1 and fabulous, and it came with the most cleaver carrying device I've ever seen! We ended up taking a TukTuk for part of it because we were pretty far away and it was hot, we found a random guy on the street... don't tell Alex! He of course didn't understand where we said to go so he drove us to the zoo?!? But then we showed him the map again and he got it. So we were finally in the right area. We made our way to the top ranked restaraunt in the book and much to our surprise... it was exactly the place that Alex's wife recomended our first day! Since it was so delicious the first time around we ate there again, this time I skipped the Thai Hot! Our culunary experiences had come full circle at our last Thai meal! After lunch we had some time before our ride would be back to pick us up, we were pretty shopped out so there was only one thing left to do, one last Thai massage! This time my Dad went too! I think he was pretty sad he waited until the last hour to join in the fun. We all got an hour long hand and foot reflexology massage together and then my parents and sister went to the coffee shop near by to relax while Eric and I got a second hour, this time a full body oil massage. It did wonders for my sunburn too, because even the prescription cream from the pharmacy wasn't making it go away. Eric and I each had 2 full hours of massage and after tip it was still only $40 USD total, it's really insane how cheap they are!

Our vacation was ending and now it was time to venture back to the condo and grab our bags and head to the airport, with Alex's transportation of course! I was quite delighted to have a delicious sub sandwhich from Subway on our way out, it's funny what things from home fill that empty spot now! We all boarded our late night flight and arrived in Bangkok just minutes before midnight.

Unfortunately, our flights home weren't until the morning so we sat up in the Bangkok airport overnight and enjoyed our last bit of time together. Fortunatley, the Bangkok airport doesn't close, nor do many of the amenities inside. My parents caught their flight to the states (via Tokyo) around 6:30 and then Kellie and Eric and I hung out until our flight to Japan (via Taiwan) at 8:30 and then Kellie finally got to head back to China around 10am. It was a long night for all of us.

So Eric and I were back on our own... our family vacation was over and we were headed back to the snow. After staying up Friday night in the Bangkok airport, we flew to Taiwain for our connection and then got to Tokyo around 6pm. We got our luggage and got on a rapid train to Ueno Station (about 90 minutes away) and we then found the bus station and got dinner. Even though it was only for a few hours, it was fun for me to see Tokyo up and running! And I was slightly relieved to be 'home', even though we were in Tokyo, there were a lot of familiar things around. We walked along a side street to find dinner (mostly because it was less crowded and much easier since we had our luggage). We ate a Kabob style restaraunt that was tiny and in a basement, when we walked in with our luggage they laughed and asked us if we were lost, we said no and that we were waiting for the bus... they responded with "Merry Christmas, come in I guess". We must have found a place that not many tourists eat at. Regardless, it was delicious, but the prices were nothing like Thailand! We ate a small meal and then got snacks at the convienence store before our long bus ride. At 10 pm we finally boarded the night bus headed north and made the 9 hour trek to Aomori. I was able to sleep for parts of it, but I don't think Eric slept at all. We arrived at the hirosaki train station just before 7 am and the next train was not until 9:30, so we got a donut for breakfast and got comfortable, which was much easier after we found the waiting room, that had heat! Our train was delayed until just after noon becuase of the snow :/ We were so ready to get home, but we kept our spirits up knowing we were close. We finally made it to the train station in Goshogowara and Katie picked us up. When we got back to her house we had a bit of work to do... our car had 12 days worth of snow piled on top of it. With Katie's help it took us 45 minutes to shovel out, we then made our hour drive home and were home at 5pm Sunday night. 46 hours of travel, and 62 hours without real sleep makes for a long journey! So we're back home now and settled back into our life in small town Japan.


* That was the longest blog entry ever, if you were planning on going to Phuket to experience it for yourself, sorry I spoiled the ending! I hope i remembered all of the good stories!