Thailand Part 1: Bangkok & Krabi

And here begins my adventures in Thailand. Probably my favorite part of the summer. My best friend from my high school track team, Alyssa, is doing her PhD research in Thailand so she's been living there for 2 yrs. I pretty much just told her I was coming and she planned the whole vacation. Yeah, I got super lucky! It was not only AMAZING to visit Thailand and see all the sites, and have someone else plan it, but it was also REALLY fun traveling with one of my bestfriendsisters...

I bought this hat for Mom and had no place to put it, so this is what I looked like in the airport ;)

Once I flew into Bangkok, we spent a day touring all the main attractions - the three main Buddhist temples, the most notable being "The Grand Palace" (or "The Emerald Buddha" I think?) It was definitely the most spectacular/ornate temple I have ever been to (that's saying a lot since I've seen a lot of them!) 

This was part of the Grand Palace - as you can see, the detail is pretty amazing here. We were surrounded by huge castles with this much detail!

Alyssa, in front of a lot of flying buddha angels? I'm so ignorant...

You'd be surprised how many people we asked to take our picture with no success of getting those two statues in it. The Asian dude is a bonus point ;)

Then we traveled to a city in southern Thailand - KRABI. That has one of the most famous beaches: Ao Nang Beach. Alyssa had already booked a flight down there for about 70 USD. Can you believe that?

This accurately depicts our excitement on the hour-long flight :)

This is the view from our hotel at Ao Nang.

This hotel was $30 USD per night. Can you believe it? It was perfect.

From Au Nang, we rode these boats to another beach that was not accessible by foot (!!!) - Ao Phra Nang Beach.

This was our view on the boat. Seriously so beautiful.

A view of the boats on the shore of Ao Phra Nang

Then we hiked through the jungle-ish to the opposite side of the beach:

Saw some awesome monkeys along the way

And swung on some hanging vines...

Admired some caves

And hiked up some jungle roots

Can you tell how happy I was to be on this adventure?

And we're there at Ao Phra Nang!

The water was pure green. It was a beautiful contrast to the huge, towering jungle-esque rock towers along the shore.

As we headed back, we happened upon the most delicious restaurant right along the shore. It was dinner time, and the sun was setting, and our view was amazing. Also, have you guys ever had coconut juice? AMAZING.

This was our dinner. The most delicious seafood I've ever tasted in my life!!!!

And this was our view from our dinner table. Seriously!

A very warm, relaxing day :)

The next day we took this boat again to Ao Phra Nang Beach, but a different part. We are wearing matching elephant sarongs!!!

THE BEACH

Even more beautiful. We swam across to that rock island. Seriously one of the most beautiful sights I've seen.

Our view from the boat.