Amanda's Travel Blog

A personal blog of Amanda and Ryan's travels in Europe and South East Asia, 2014.

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New Blog "365 Days of Exercise"

New life chapter starting with a new job, new flat, new location. It is the perfect time to start that one-time lifestyle change for a healthier and fitter body. Changing eating habits I don't find too challenging, but making a habit of exercising regularly has been a real challenge. So here is my new health and fitness orientated blog "365 Days of Exercise":

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/amandagray1992

Follow me if you would like to see my progress and get some fitspiration!

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Bangkok for the final 3 days

Our week in tropical paradise is over. This morning we flew up to Bangkok for the last few days of our trip.

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We are now certified Advanced Divers!

We did so much diving this week, including 5 'adventure' training dives, that we have now qualified as PADI Advanced Open Water Divers. Not what we planned at all, but it was so easy and it now means we are pretty much unrestricted in where we dive in the future. Cooool!

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Our dive company, Kon-Tiki, had a Dive Photographer. Here is a few snaps she got of us and the marine life. These pictures are actually what it looks like!

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It was all tropical bliss until we reached the surface, then tropical rain storms!

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Visit to Ko Phi Phi Don and diving with a turtle! We wanted to spend the whole dive just following him around, but your not allowed to do that. So cool! Ko Phi Phi Don has also won our award for most beautiful beach in Thailand.

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We had an awesome day diving at Ko Haa. It was a shame that the sky was overcast otherwise the visibility would have been even better, plus the camera does not do the colours justice in the photos! I was a bit anxious because it was my first dive since the PADI course but as soon as I was below the water it was totally fine. So many cool fish. It was like being in Finding Nemo!

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We have arrived in Paradise! i.e. Ao Nang (Krabi) on the Andaman Sea. We already have a diving trip booked for tomorrow!

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We couldn't visit Thailand and not check out the local Ladyboy Caberet! This was hilarious, especially Tina Turner's "Simply the Best" and the Britney Spears' "I'm Not a Girl". Ryan was very relieved that we didn't sit near the front when the guy got pulled up on stage for a lap dance!

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Our final destination in Chiang Mai was the Doi Suthep Temple, high up on a hill outside the city. Although you can get a ‘songthaew’ (odd van taxi thing) most of the way, there was 308 steps to reach the temple. The temple was certainly colourful with lots of cool buddha statues (I haven’t learned the names of all the different ones). However all the signs were in Thai, so we didn’t learn as much as we expected to about it. It also had great views of Chiang Mai!

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On Wednesday we did a traditional Thai cooking class. We made 6 courses in 6 hours and you got to eat all the them. I was so stuffed by the end I couldn't even manage the last course. I made Hot & Creamy Soup, Chicken Cashew Stir Fry, Spring Rolls, Yellow Curry with Chicken, Big Noodles Stir Fry and Mango Sticky Rice. We even got a mini recipe book to take home and a certificate! (Although Ryan says it's probably the only cooking certificate I'll ever get!)

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This experience was so great it deserves two posts! In the afternoon we got to give the elephants their daily 'mud spa' treatment, which got pretty messy when they want to spread mud around too. They are amazing animals and surprisingly playful. I think they enjoyed being played with and pampered, kind of like a dog. This was definitely one of the main highlights of the trip!

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We had the most amazing day at the Elephant Retirement Park on Tuesday. We wanted to see elephants up close in Thailand, but also make sure we were supporting an ethical organisation where the health and wellbeing of the elephants was the priority and it wasn’t about making money from tourists. This park was perfect. They had 6 elephants including one baby (7 months old) who was adorable and acted just like a toddler; stumbling around and being a bit naughty! We got to spend 2 hours in the morning feeding them, literally, a tonne of bananas.

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First full day in Chiang Mai, Thailand was pretty chilled out. Just trying to get the grips with the city, decide what we can fit into our 4 days here and make some bookings. First stop: Thai massage!

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Chiang Mai Sunday Market; a weekly market set up along the main roads of the old city, and this is a selection of the weird and wonderful things you can find there!

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It's a tough life being on holiday for 8 weeks. Well-deserved foot massages!

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Hoi An is famous for its tailors. You can literally get anything you want, made to fit, for a very cheap price, and I would say the standard is pretty high! We weren't really planning on getting anything made, however....