Our Last Few Weeks

It was our final couple of weeks, so the plan was to soak it all in and enjoy every last moment of what has been an amazing trip. First stop was one last weekend on a beautiful beach, why did we say we were tired of this? Koh Lanta is an island in Southern Thailand and is known for being a quiet and secluded getaway. It’s off season here now, so it was beyond quiet and felt a little more like a deserted island. It was a perfect way to enjoy a couple of days relaxing and we got some amazing weather. We swam in the warm water, ate good food, rented a scooter to explore the island and just relaxed. We went on our final dives of the trips and decided to do some cave dives. We dropped down into the water swam through the cave opening and resurfaced in the middle of a series of caves. It was so much fun and with the beautiful scenery on the boat ride out there it was a perfect little farewell to islands and diving for us.

Our own little private beach bar

Our next stop was the chaos of a city known as Bangkok! We were meeting up with Kelly’s sister Whitney for a few days to explore the city and enjoy some shopping. We stayed on the infamous Khao Son Road and took in all the shops, street food and partying that makes this place known. I think we chose one of the hottest days to go explore the Reclining Buddha and the Grand Palace. It was all beautiful and amazing, since we’ve been exposed to all of this culture for so long it was nice to see Whitney experience all of it for the first time. I think we realized just how much of the SE Asia culture had become second nature to us at this point. We hardly even notice the mayhem of crazy traffic anymore. After experiencing some of Bangkok, we were all off to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand.

Reclining Buddha

Grand Palace

Chiang Mai is up in the mountains and not too far from the borders with Laos and Myanmar, it’s known for elephants,  Buddhist Wats, and it’s amazing arts/crafts; so we took advantage of it all. Since it was the end of our trip we figured we could finally start shopping and load up on all the cool stuff we’d been passing up the last 6 months. We even took in ringside seats at a Muay Thai fighting match one night. Every night we found ourselves at either the night bazaar or at one of their famous dimly lit street walks. The atmosphere was always amazing and all of the crafts and arts are fascinating to look at and shop for.

Whitney planned a Wat walk for us one day so we got to see lots of cool temples and statues. Most of the wats are in the old town area which is actually surrounded by a moat to this day and has most the original walls and gates protecting the city still intact. We found it nice being surrounded by monks again, we were really beginning to realize how weird it would be at home not to see orange monk robes everywhere.

Ringing bells in front of the Buddhist temple brings good luck

We also took the opportunity to go ride elephants, way cool! Of course we got the fatty that couldn’t get enough food and would walk two steps and want another banana but I guess I’d eat a lot two if I was 2,000 lbs. There was also a few baby elephants that were cute but clumsy, fun to watch them playing in the river and spraying themselves down with water from their trunks. After that we stopped at a Karon village in the south and then trekked into a waterfall for some swimming. We wrapped up the day by floating down the river on a bamboo raft and enjoying the river.

A 5 month old baby elephant

Whitney and Kelly on our homemade bamboo raft

Taking in the night market

We all had fun in Chiang Mai and got more than our fair share of shopping in, enjoyed as much Thai food as we could take in and took in way too much Chang beer.  Before we knew it our time was up in Chiang Mai and it was time for us to return to Bangkok for our last few days. We stayed in a different area of Bangkok to get a different feel of the city. We were actually shopped out and our bags couldn’t handle much more, so we really just relaxed, got lots of massages and reflected on our trip the last few days. Before we knew it we were packing up our bags for the very last time and on our way to our very last airport….for this trip anyway.

Downtown Bangkok

Final thoughts:

It has been an AMAZING journey for us and we've both fulfilled a dream. We have seen so much, met so many amazing people, experienced many different cultures first hand and took way too many pictures. We couldn’t have asked for a better, smoother, safer or more amazing trip than we got. We had over 24 flights with only 1 delay, no lost luggage, no major illnesses, and most amazingly- no traffic accidents!  It has been a journey in more ways than one and we can't help but feel changed in some ways. We can't believe it's over but we feel ready to come home too... at least we think we are.


"Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living." ~Miriam Beard