Elephants and Good Luck!

The last two days have been INCREDIBLE! Yesterday we drove right around the island to the Big Buddha temple/statue. 

The view was beautiful and it really felt like a sacred place. On one side under the huge Buddha was a smaller Buddha and we rubbed his belly for good luck!

On the other side, a monk was  giving people blessings. We went over with the whole fam and he had us kneel with our hands together as he spoke in Thai and sprinkled holy water over us. He tied a bracelet onto each of our wrists (he particularly liked Will) and said "good luck, good luck, good luck, good luck" before sending us on our way. 

We drove back to a busier area to do some more shopping and happened upon this really cool bridge! It moved with the waves and we had fun running back and forth with Eddie and Will.

Later on we had a really yummy dinner on the beach for Sam's birthday - complete with a major catastrophe when Eddie stubbed her toe on a brick in the sand and tripped over; contrary to how it sounds, the brick was actually highly visible and had a huge flag sticking out of it! Eddie recovered though and dinner was lovely.

Today was the best day yet - and one if the best EVER! We got up early and drove up a mountain to go on an elephant ride!!! Ahh the elephants were absolutely beautiful, gentle giants. The two of us went on with Will and it was just an indescribably awesome experience. We fed our elephant, Pontip, bananas and she snacked on some leaves along the way. We were on the youngest one, 16 years old, Claire and Sir (Claire's dad) were on the 25 year old one, and Dad and Eddie's was 45 with amazing long tusks.

Part way through we were allowed to sit on their necks! We really felt like jungle women then! Ahh it was just incredible. Aaand slightly scary - Pontip seemed to still be in training and decided to tear a branch from a tree while Han was on her neck! She wasn't thrashing around too hard but it was a little reminder of how powerful they are. 

We came to a stop at a waterfall with a lagoon and had a swim! The sitting-under-the-waterfall shots weren't quiiite as glamorous as we'd imagined haha but we managed to get some good ones.

We went back down the mountain, had lunch with mango sticky rice, and wandered through the streets before heading home. 

We chilled out and got Thai takeaway for dinner. While we waited for Dad and Claire to get food, we played sleeping lions with the kiddies - the version where one person has to try to make everyone else laugh - and it was so much fun! They're so sweet. We had dinner, played cards, and are about to call it a night. Such a wonderful day!!

Rollin' in Baht

The markets on Thursday night were awesome - exactly what we imagined only with food more amazing than we thought to dream up! We shopped and ate our way from one end to the other; we got bracelets, pants, a Buddha for our apartment, Han got a comb (and a hairstyle tutorial), chicken satays, grilled rice that tasted kind of like a cracker, dumplings, coconut and egg yolk bites of deliciousness and banana pancakes!  

At the end of the markets we met up with Sam, Grant, and Zac for a drink and decided to go clubbing together. Sam had seen this place near where we're staying called Orgasmic, so we all piled into their tiny car and drove there. We walked in expecting loud music and party atmosphere, but found ourselves in a beautiful, upscale restaurant right on the beach. Haha we ended up having a really lovely time, chatting, sipping on baileys and passion fruit shooters, and having mango sticky rice for dessert! 

The next day was the most perfect beach day EVER! We went to La Mui for a full day in the surf and sun. When we got settled, a little Thai lady (we learnt later that she was more than 70 years old) came up and told us she did manicures and braids. Eddie, who's been excited about getting braids since we got here, got cornrows! It took over an hour but the final product was worth it - Ed loves em and they work well with her self inflicted mullet (she cut her fringe right down to the roots one day because she'd gotten tired of it, too funny!)

A little way up the beach was a yummy looking lunch spot, so we packed everything up and Luce and I swam up the beach with a kid each on our backs. We were laughing and screaming and carrying on, "I'm gonna win" and "keep kicking Will" and so on. Once we'd gotten there, Claire told us we'd swum past a huge group of good looking, young guys - apparently there were girls strutting by in their little bikinis while we spluttered past in the background hahaha, classic goon squad moment. We had a yummy Thai lunch and headed home for a while before going out to a different set of markets that night! We sipped on piña coladas, bought some more stuff, and did banana pancakes round two!