Thailand!!!!

Sawadeka!!!!
Thailand was AMAZING!!!! I experienced sooo many wonderful things and some not so wonderful as well. Here is a brief overview of my trip!!!!
Day 1: I woke up at 5:30am and went out to watch us come into port as usual. The area were we ported in was in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!!!! It was 30 mins from the nearest city and 2 ½ hours away from Bangkok!!! Luckily I had 3-day trips on the first 3 days, so I only had to deal with the transportation issues at night. My first day trip was to the Pattaya Elephant Village, a sanctuary for working elephants that no longer have jobs. I had no idea what to expect, but what I got was TEN TIME BETTER than I could have ever imagined!!! We fed the elephants bananas and were up close and personal with them the entire day!!! The “host” of the village asked us if we wanted to take a bath with the elephants… thinking that all we were going to do was ride the elephant to the edge of the water and they were going to spray the water up with their trunks. I was VERY WRONG!!! I climbed the fence, jumped on, and sat right behind her ears and the Master sat right behind me!!! It may sound cheesy, but it is the most AMAZING and FREEING feeling riding an elephant. They are such graceful and magnificent creatures and their skin is very prickly and leathery!!! In order to not fall off, I had to practically lie on her head and hold on!!! As we walked toward the pond, the Master asked if I wanted to go swimming and I laughed and asked, “WHAT???” The next thing I knew the elephant kept going deeper and deeper into the water and suddenly I was waist deep in the pond!!! I could not help but laugh and smile the entire time!!! There were a few other people that were riding elephants too and we all concluded that it was an INCREDIBLE experience!!!
Day 2: Thailand was definitely my animal country… I went to the Tiger Zoo and it was quite different from any zoos in the states! The animals are up close and personal, there was only a thin glass wall between the tigers and me!!! There were some interesting sites in the zoo that I never thought I would see… such as a pig sleeping with tiger cubs and a mother tiger with piglets!!! Crazy, crazy things!!! We saw a circus act as well with tigers that, to say the least, were not very happy. The most interesting part of the entire show was when a tiger went to the bathroom then sprayed a woman with… well you can use your imagination. After the show my friend Christina and I got to hold a baby tiger that was SOOOO CUTE!!!! He had blue eyes and was sooo small!!! Then we saw some Orangutans that were very entertaining. They had on shirts and were taking photos with the tourists. When we got closer one of them climbed up the scaffolding and was hanging above us. I went to take a photo and he began PEEING!!! I jumped out of the way just in time!!!! After the Tiger Zoo, we went to a place called Mini Siam, which is all of the greatest structures in the world scaled down to about 1/10 of the normal size. It was cool seeing the places that I have already been to in a mini size! I also saw all of the major sites of Thailand in one short walk. Once we got back to the ship my friend’s Leah, Christina, and I went to the “walking district” in Pattaya for dinner and some exploring. Before I go further I want to explain that Thailand has one of the largest human trafficking problems in the world and a large portion of the population has AIDS. Pattaya in particular has a large prostitution population, mainly children from 10 to 18. With that information, I can continue on with the night. We got to the walking district and immediately were asked by many people if we wanted to see “Go Gos” (aka prostitutes). We were getting hungry, so we ended up going to a pub style restaurant were the Beaiges cover band came on and sang! We walked around for a while and there were a lot of people singing American Songs!!! Very Very Popular!!! We also saw a drunk Irish man that was dancing outside a bar to ACDC… AMAZING!!! Oh and they don’t were underwear underneath the kilts! SCARY!!! On our taxi ride back, which was the back of a truck with a top cover, open sides, and benches (yeah), it began to rain and the city streets looked sooo beautiful!
Day 3: This was the day that I went to the Pattaya Orphanage, which was an amazing facility!!! We got to see the infants to two year olds; all of the other children were gone on a play day or something like that. We toured the facility, which was the largest and nicest one that I have seen thus far. They had a soccer field, a playground, classrooms, a cafeteria, and bedrooms. There were a few different buildings for different groups: a School for the Deaf and Disabled, a building for K-12 learning, and an old folks home. We got to eat lunch with the little kids and play with them until their naptime. I was very surprised to find that many of them knew a lot of English words and they too watch Barney! The director of the Orphanage told us that everyone that comes to the Orphanage has an hour of English class everyday! It was sooo nice to play with the children and bring smiles to their faces! After the Orphanage a few girls and I shared a 2-½ hour taxi ride to Bangkok where I met my friends Kelsey, Victoria, and Camilla. We went to a hostel, threw our bags down and headed out to explore Bangkok. Bangkok is a VERY busy city and hailing a cab is no easy task… whatever you do, you better hail it on the side of the road that you want to be on, because there are NO U-TURNS!!!! We went to an apart of town that was known for the tasty Thai food and well they definitely did not disappoint me!!! THE FOOD WAS AMAZING!!!!! After dinner we went to the Giant Night Bazaar… it was quite the experience!!! There were shops EVERYWHERE and it was soo fun seeing the locals interacting and shopping was pretty fun too! We also tried Thai Ice Cream… yeah… not so yummy. It kind of decinegrates in your mouth and just doesn’t taste good AT ALL!!!! Once we finished at the Night Bazaar, we went back to the hostel and called it a night.
Day 4: This day was one BIG accident… but in the end was totally worth it! We woke up early and took a cab to what we thought was a 40 min drive to a floating market. Turns out we took a 2 ½ hour drive to a floating market in the middle of the jungle on the opposite side of Thailand!!! To say the least I was a little upset, until we got out of the cab and looked over a small bridge where we saw the most amazing site. It was a small shopping center on the water! Everyone was in canoes floating up and down the canal that had anything from food to clothes to artwork on them. There were also small stands that were along side the canal on bamboo stilts! We got on a canoe and went through the floating market’s incredible maze! At one point we got off of the canoe and walked through a coconut farm!! It was amazing to see how the monkeys were trained to retrieve the coconuts for the farmers!!! After exploring the market for a while longer, we decided to make our trek back to Pattaya, which was a total travel time of 5 hours!!! We had no idea how we were going to get back to civilization; suddenly three older women looked at us and said, “Bangkok?” We nodded and they grabbed our hands and stuck us on a bus with them. We ended up in a city where we followed the women to a bus station. They put us on the bus and a woman who spoke English asked us if we were going to Bangkok… we were relived to hear that we were on the correct bus!!! We made it to Bangkok after an interesting ride to say the least and got into a taxi for our ride back to the ship in Pattaya where we ate dinner and decided to go to bed!
Day 5: Today was full of adventure and overcoming a fear that Kelsey and I had! We woke up and went to Pattaya to explore the city. Kelsey was looking for a sapphire ring since that stone is native to Thailand, so we went to a few jewelry stores and then we decided to go BUNGEE JUMPING!!! I have always wanted to try bungee jumping, but I was always too nervous about the thought of jumping off of something with a line of rubber bands holding you! BUT we checked out a place that was run by a man from New Zealand that had been in the business of over 25 years and made us by insurance!!! So Kelsey and I jumped together and all I can say is that we screamed, laughed, screamed, laughed some more, and then felt as though my eyes were going to pop out of my head!!! It was totally worth the thrill and I am sooo happy that I went!!! And don’t worry I have it all on video!!! After the adrenaline rush, the rest of the day was rather boring. We walked around for a few more hours and then headed back to the ship to sail to India!!!
Overall Thailand was incredible and I absolutely LOVED the people, the culture, and the country!!! It is by far my favorite country so far!!! It was by far the most inconvient port yet. But aside from that, the trip was incredible!!!!