Amy and Brendan (and Monica and Michael and Drew) Take Thailand: "Summer" Vacation

      Blazing past the few posts I had written up but never put pictures to, here, I give you a mostly pictures post of all the things that happened while Brendan was here.

     Brendan came to visit for my "summer" break. He arrived on March 16th, the day after my contract for the first semester ended, and left on May 10th, two days before my contract for this school year began.

     His visit started off slow. We spent two weeks hanging around my village, Sanchaokaitor. I tutored my friend's younger cousin and they fed us some delicious food. That happened in the mornings, everyday. Then we would go off on adventures on the scooter.

This is the moat at the local temple

Necessary picture of Amy

The local temple + my scooter!!

My house

Lat Yao and an unhealthy amount of electrical wires

Suki! The best food EVER!!

      We went to Ann's niece's school's end of the year party. It involved me taking a million pictures of other people's children. After the classes finished their dance, the students were given leis to "judge" who was the best. It was a popularity contest. And Ann's family would not let their niece and nephew lose.

Each yellow lei is 1000 baht. 

They both got a lot.

Brendan eating pad thai 

Rain!!

Yellow mango, sticky rice, and some other sweet sponge thing.

The sign leading into my town.

The makeshift double bed.

LIZARD!!

Ann's family's farm.

So much rice!

Corn?

Noodles.

Pretty flowers.

     We were invited to attend a dinner/house blessing party with Ann's family. They just completed building a new house and it was being blessed by monks and was a cause for celebration in the village!

The dinner we enjoyed.

Ann's aunt and uncle.

With the mayor

Musical entertainment.

And a play! With very loud, clanging music.

Random child on the side of the road.

Getting ready for speed shots!

Built for SPEED!

     We also were invited to attend a becoming monk ceremony the night before we left for our vacation.

These men were becoming monks.

This is the stage we get to dance on.

The view from the stage.

     Then, Brendan and I headed to Bangkok to fly to Krabi to meet up with Monica and Michael to enjoy our vacation from our vacation.

Who wouldn't want to eat at "Eat Am Are Good Steak?"

Cool statues at the Bangkok airport.

Brendan liked the red one more.

Our plane to Krabi.

Testing the in-flight food.

Our first accommodation. A real bed!!

Ocean!!!

Kayaking! And blue skies!!

A wild Monica appeared!!

Preparing for a day of kayaking.

"No, don't take my picture."

The electrical wires look less scary here.

A temple

And the massive amounts of steps leading up to it.

Apparently these stoplights are a big deal?

Soap flowers!!

Drinks in bamboo shoots!

A necessary motorbike selfie.

Nothing to see here, just working on the road.

We semi-raced these kids.

Beach!

Smile! This picture is for your mom!

Those sand balls are made by crabs. There is a crab in the center.

Documenting things in the water.

Jellyfish?

Look how far out we are! Still almost no water.

And still the water only barely touches my ankles.

Owls. For Kate.

The last shot before the rain started.

The outside of our accommodation.

Hehehe.

Islands!

      One day, we went canoeing. We thought canoeing meant that we would row, but it actually meant that a Thai would row the inflatable boat around while we got to ride along and take pictures. As a bonus, he also decided to be our photographer for couple shots.

A normal shot. 

With a little better lighting.

Tilted for the artsy factor.

He was a huge fan of the camera tilt.

      As part of the canoeing package, we went to see James Bond Island. Which really is just an island that was used in the movie The Man with the Golden Gun.

James Bond Island!

Lil' shrine!

I thought the turn signal was hilarious.

Smile! There's a beach behind you!

Rock climbing!

Oh yeah!

Railey Beach.

That boat was our transportation to this island.

The Irish Rover Pub. We never went there, but we love the song.

     After Krabi, we said goodbye to Monica and Michael. Michael was heading back to the States and Monica was heading to Bangkok with him to both see him off and pick up Drew. They spent the next two weeks running around Thailand from the beaches to Phayao.

     Brendan and I flew from Krabi to Chiang Mai. Spent one night in Chiang Mai, then rented a scooter and began our five (or four?) day trip of the Mae Hon Song Loop.

Our one-night, super cheap hostel room with a large towel for a blanket

Food & drinks!

Yaaay! Curry!!

The beast we rode the loop on.

Drive-by temple shots.

Only a few turned out decent.

Obligatory passenger selfie.

A temple in our first stop, Chang Dao.

Our slightly better accommodation.

The road to a cave temple.

I don't know what this is, but it looks cool.

This one looks slightly creepy with the hand. 

You rap what you sow.

We weren't sure we could go in there, but took a picture from the door.

Buddha!

Following our guide into the cave.

Into the cave we go exploring!!

Look! A shrine.

Mmmm. Sandwich.

     We spent the first night in Chang Dao, not technically part of the Mae Hong Son loop, but it was a lovely town and the expats we met were all friendly. We ate at their "biker bar" and talked with them about their countries, our country, plans for Songkran, and were given sound advice on where to travel.
     We visited a cave temple which was not at all what we expected. We had to get a guide that took us through the cave and literally crouched through some passages to see all the things in there (mostly bugs and stalactites and probably bats). The tour was cool though.

Brendan all ready for day 2.

Ready with attitude.

#HumanPorn

On the way to another temple .... that we decided to skip.

A river!!

Scenery!!

Lizard!

Fried rice! Brendan's favorite.

Sweet and sour chicken? pork? something.

Next stop: Pai!

Trees

Mooooooo!

Foreigners!!! (That's how we knew we were close to Pai)

Elephants!!

Temple entrance gate #1232

Don't mind us, we're just dropping heavy equipment right by you.

Big Buddha!

"Stop taking pictures of people working Amy." - Brendan 

The view from the top.

It looks like they lost a piece...

Pretty impressive.

      We didn't stay in Pai though, we had plans to be another 100 kilometers (or more probably) away from there, so after our short stint at the white buddha temple (definitely not its name), we hopped back on the motorbike and were on our way.

After driving through some rain, we took a rest while the weather cleared.

And Brendan got some cool sun shots.

Then we made it to our next destination!

The cave lodge!

       Day 2 of the loop was long. We stopped in Pai but decided against staying in Pai because it's crowded and liked the sound of a cave lodge that wasn't too much farther from where we were. We hit some rain while driving which slowed us down a bit but made it to the lodge before it got dark and got ourselves a nice room.
     Our big temple visit of the day was in Pai. We wanted to see the huge Buddha that was so easily visible from the road. We made our way up there, and while they're still constructing the steps to actually lead to the Buddha, you can hike up a dirt path to check it out.

Trees!!

Look familiar, Kate?

Farm land!

People waving! 

Greenery!!

At some point, this became the rule, all drive-by temple shots were interrupted by a tree.

Mae Hong Son!

Our next room. Complete with air conditioning.

Is it done yet?!

Weird meat stick. Amy did not trust it.

A drive-by temple shot with no trees in the way!

A lake!

A Chinese temple!

Look at all the pretty colors!

The entrance gate

I don't know what this is but I must document it.

Turtle dragon?

The inside of the temple.

Koi fish picture, also for Kate.

The door "guards."

I liked that they seemed to stroke their beards.

      Day three had less driving, we were only going to Mae Hong Son and stopping for the day. We got a sweet accommodation and were able to get some much needed laundry out of the way. We drove around town a bit and stumbled across the Chinese temple and I took a million pictures because I was so excited about how colorful it was.

Lil' mango!

When we left, we ran into this parade.

I believe it was for Songkran. There was water involved.

I had wanted to go to this other temple, but we decided driving was the better option.

The instruments they use to make clanging noises.

     We stopped at what was supposed to be a sunflower field. Only once we got there did we realize that it's not sunflower season .....

The only yellow flowers I could find.

THIS is where I would put sunflowers ... IF I HAD ANY!

Also ALL OVER HERE!

"Look sad, the sunflowers are gone."

We found other flowers later to make up for it.

Not as cool as sunflowers though.

Look! A geological marker! I think

Farm land!

Mooooooo

Mooooooooo

Our next accommodation! A hut with many bugs.

      Day four was a good day. We drove from Mae Hong Son to a little town who's name I have forgotten and stayed at huts that this old couple rents out to travelers. The old couple was adorable. When we went to order food from them, we quickly learned that they actually go out and buy the food and then just put it on a plate (nicely) and present it to you. We paid for it, but I wouldn't call it a home-cooked meal. At night, there was a large gecko in our room that kept making noise and made it a little bit harder to sleep. But we survived the night and were ready to be on our way back to Chiang Mai.

Temple stop #128390218

But it does look cool.

Then we're back in Chiang Mai!

A monk on a motorbike.

The moat!

kjfadj;kfadjkls

A frog!

A temple filled with monks.

I'm pretty sure this is a historic landmark...

     Day five of our trip got us back into Chiang Mai for the night. We had driven through a national park on the way so most of our views were of scenery which was nice. At night, we visited a temple and there was some sort of thing going on, so we just hung out in the back and watched/listened then wandered around the grounds.

     We still had a few days before our real accommodation set up for Songkran was ready for us, so we decided to take a trip to Chiang Rai to visit the White Temple.

A parade of monks! I believe this is in preparation for Songkran..

So many flowers!

Our accommodation in Chiang Rai! They even gave us orange juice!

The clock tower.

Night bazaar shopping!

       Day six (?) of our adventure took us into Chiang Rai. Our plans were set to see the White Temple the next day, so we took the night easy with a brief stop at the night bazaar in hopes of finding good souvenirs. No such luck.

Leaving our cute hotel room.

The White Temple.

Brendan's favorite game: taking pictures of people taking pictures.

I thought Brendan was near me, turns out I was talking to no one.

Batman!

A picture with a picture of the architect of the temple.

Look at this guy!

Predator!

     So basically the White Temple is a modern temple. It's different because it's not painted gold like other temples. And the architect had this idea at including all these modern symbols like The Matrix, superheroes, presidents, etc. It's supposed to show something that I still don't completely understand no matter how many times I try to wrap my head around it. There's a huge mural inside the temple that we weren't allowed to photograph. And the crazy part is that this temple wasn't even finished yet! He'd been working on it for 20 years. After our visit, an earthquake struck the northern part of Thailand. The damage to the temple was more than the architect would have liked and now the temple will not be repaired. For all of the confusion it's caused me, I'm glad we got to visit it before the earthquake hit it.

On the drive to Mae Rim

No key

A KEY!

Bean bags!!

The rest of the spacious room.

      We ended up staying not in Chiang Mai but in Mae Rim. To someone who has not been in Thailand before, that is all obviously jibberish. It was a time where Amy learned an important lesson that she sucks at understanding distances on maps. Mae Rim is 12 kilometers out of Chiang Mai, or a 400 baht tuk-tuk ride. Or a 20 baht songthaew ride (if you know what you're looking for). The first night we took the 400 baht tuk-tuk, not knowing what I had gotten us into. After that, we only took the 20 baht songthaew.

The plaza outside the accommodation.

EVERYDAY IS HAWAIIAN SHIRT DAY FOR SONGKRAN!

Thoroughly soaked.

But majestic.

On the other side of the moat, there is a crazy water fight.

A necessary food break.

      Songkran festival is a three-day nation-wide water fight that all of Thailand participates in. We had buckets with strings attached to them and would throw them into the moat and pull them out and then pelt people with water. We got soaked. We did not destroy the camera or any phones. It was a good three days. Day one of Songkran had us the most excited, but overall it was a great experience.

WE WERE JUST WALKING ON THE STREET!

Brendan stayed dry.

     We managed to venture out one day just to go get food, but even that got me soaked while Brendan didn't even get a drop on him. One of us is a ninja.

25 C is too cold for Amy. Begin burrito mode!

     Brendan doesn't enjoy the heat. And so we turned on the AC. But I was always cold before he even felt it. So burrito mode was our solution.

Our last night away from Sanchao, we stayed in Nakhon Sawan.

The corridors look like they came out of The Shining.

To keep the monsters away.

     Our last day of the our vacation from our vacation got us into Nakhon Sawan very late. So we stayed at a hotel in Nakhon Sawan and took a bus into Lat Yao and got a ride into Sanchao by Ann the next day.

     The remainder of Brendan's stay was spent reading and being lazy in Sanchao. We ran the air conditioning almost constantly, my computer was sent in to get fixed (it died while we were adventuring around Thailand), and we explored around Sanchao. We found another cave temple (I can't find the photos for that one) and visited Ann at her work. We tried to go to a national park, but it turns out it was much farther from Sanchao than previously believed.

     Brendan left to go back to the states on May 11th. I cried a lot on the ride to Bangkok and on the way back home. But I made it back to Sanchao in one piece, and after that one day the tears didn't fall as easily. He's back in the States and I'm now a month into my second semester of teaching. The students are stubborn, but I believe I'm doing all that I can to get them jazzed on English.

     Monica went back to the States to surprise her family in April and has since returned to Thailand and is back to teaching in Phayao. All is well for both of us. It's now the rainy season. Almost everyday it rains for at least an hour, and in my village, the power outages have become less frequent (which is extremely nice).