It's been a while since I last blogged and that is because I have been off FINDING MYSELF on the other side of the world. Back in February me and my boyfriend of six years broke up and as with any huge change in life, it made me reassess and come to the realisation that this wasn't the end of the world but an opportunity to do something different. My little sister was jumping on a plane the following day to SE Asia and while I couldn't drop everything and go with her, I decided to save for a few months and then follow her footsteps.
So after saving up for three months, off I went to find Amy in Chiang Mai. When I arrived sleepy and in a clichéd pair of hareems, there she was holding up my name at the airport and so started our adventure together.
Here are a selection of my favourite snaps from two weeks in Thailand.
Before I'd left the UK I knew I wanted to meet some elephants and I wanted to do it in the most ethical way possible. We visited the Elephant Nature Park, an hour outside of Chiang Mai, for a two day trip. We spent the whole time feeding elephants, stroking them, washing them in the river and generally wandering around with them. It. Was. INCREDIBLE. I will be posting a more detailed blog about this trip but if you want to know whether it was worth it, the answer is - YES, do it!
Wat Chedi Luang. This temple started life in the 14th century. You could so easily stumble upon it if you didn't know it was there, as it's set right in the middle of Chiang Mai's maze of roads, on a really unremarkable street. Being in South East Asia, we saw a lot of temples but this was one of the more impressive ones.
Thai street food.
We spent around four days in Pai, which is north west of Chiang Mai, at Purple Monkey backpackers. Pai is a tiny little hippie town and I loved it. There was so much great food, lots of little shops and loads of places to visit outside of town. We went to a reggae festival, climbed a million steps to the white Buddah, jumped in a waterfall, watched the sunset on a canyon, had a road trip with a local driver who bought us lychees to munch in the back of his truck. Pai was the best.
Meeting the locals in Koh Samet.
Sunrise on Koh Samet.
Since Amy had already done Thailand for a month at the start of her trip, we mostly only did Northern Thailand but we felt it necessary to squeeze in some beach time so spent two days on Koh Samet.
We came from Pai to Koh Samet which was quite the mission: 2 buses, 1 sleeper train, 2 tuk tuks, 1 taxi and 1 boat which, in total, took 24 hours but it was so worth it.
Underwater snaps before my tan and before this camera broke.
Two weeks in Thailand definitely wasn't enough and hopefully I'll be able to go back and do the islands one day. After Thailand we flew to Myanmar...
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