Elephants, Entertainment, Early

After boarding the cruise ship, our first stop was a large island in Thailand called Ko Samui. It was delightful. Incredible beaches, fishing boats everywhere, jungle and elephants (okay, the elephants may not have been here originally...), charming and friendly people. From the first glimpses, I already loved Thailand!

Off the dock, I loved looking at all the colorful fishing boats and random island that would pop up in the ocean. There was also a lot of good people watching to be had.



Drove up some super steep mountains into the jungle and stopped at this ancient burial site. Well, maybe it wasn't a burial site. Maybe it's just somewhere they come after people die. Apparently I wasn't listening very well.


Anyway, there were a lot of really interesting statues down there amidst greenery and flowing waterfalls. It was quite peaceful. But also seemed like it was from an entirely different world. After trekking down the long flight of stairs, it felt like you had entered a different time period and for a moment or two, surrounded by ancient statues and sunlight filtering through the trees, it felt like time stood still.







Then it was off to the elephant park! There is something about Thailand that is very commercial/touristy, but in a very tacky way. I don't mean this as an insult, but rather a charming thing in a nostalgic, admiring of the way a culture handles their tourist attractions kind of way. If that makes sense to you, fantastic. If it doesn't, please ignore completely this entire paragraph.


{And apparently blogger has changed the order that pictures are uploaded in, so I apologize for the scattered photos}


After seeing many elephants in Africa, it was really neat to see Thai/Indian elephants and see how they are different. I love how hairy these ones are! You have to get up close to them to see all the fine little hairs, but it was really neat.


And I love love love all the locals everywhere. To me, people capture the heart of a place and culture and so I do love snapping shots of them. I hope they don't mind. When it's close up, I ask and then show them the photos, which they love. When it's far away, I put on my zoom lens.


After watching an elephant show {which was neat to see everything elephants can do and how man is able to tame and train animals, but at the same time makes me feel a bit bad for the elephants}, my mom and I boarded an elephant and went on a trek through the jungle.


Below is the elephant loading dock. It was a bit funny getting on because you have to step on the elephant which feels funny, but I guess he's pretty strong.


For whatever reason, I always pictured me riding an elephant on my own. Just me on the top of the elephant gallivanting through the jungle. So I was a bit afraid, because really, what do I know about elephant riding? Then I realized that the elephants have drivers {OBVIOUSLY, who would trust me to drive an elephant?!?}, and I was reassured.


Visited a local coconut farmer's house. Loved that it was just as is. And there were buffalos everywhere. Did you know that they have water buffalo fighting rings?


Then we stopped at a waterfall. Insert contented sigh. I LOVE waterfalls. Any water in fact. But there's something about tons of water flying off an edge into a large pool that is enchanting.


I was thankful for having my bathing suit on and made my way over large rocks to make it to the large pool where I captured the sight of this stunning waterfall. And my heart was at peace. What I loved about swimming here, was that it was all local people. And we chatted. I don't speak Thai, they dont' speak English, but we all had a great time.


What lovely, wonderful people. I loved when they didn't realize my camera was waterproof, because when water suddenly hit it, they were all so concerned. Once I "explained" that it was waterproof, all was well. The kids seemed intrigued by it and we enjoyed swimming around and getting pummeled underneath the waterfall.


Sigh. I could have spent all day there. Maybe next time.

And thus concludes the travel adventures for today.

Next stop: Bangkok, Thailand.

BEAR, black, Branches

The day began unsuspectingly like any other. Little did I know that shortly my life would flash before my eyes.
We decided to head to the trailhead of Deception Falls, which took us even deeper into the woods in the middle of nowhere.
We trekked uphill, enduring millions of mosquitos and droplets of rain during the mid-afternoon sudden rainfall.
The Falls were stunning and worth the trek. We admired them. And I wandered deeper into the woods to get closer to the Falls.
As I was suddenly a ways away I spotted some berries and thought how nice it would be for bears to eat those tasty berries. Then I thought about what I would do, by myself in that moment if a bear showed up. Nonsense. Just like our bear jokes during the last couple of days.
Started walking back down and the family that had been at the falls when we arrived were long gone.
Brooke was walking ahead and shouted "Maybe if I run, the mosquitoes won't eat me!"
I shouted back "Yeah, but the bears will!"

A few minutes later, I hear a very cheerful yell from Brooke: "BEAR, bear!"
I thought "Silly Brooke, you don't joke about things like that"

Suddenly I saw Brooke walking back on the path towards me, with a look of panic in her face.
First thought: "Oooh, fun! I can get a cool bear picture"
Second thought: "Oh wait, there's a bear. I'm probably going to die because it will rip me to shreds."
So I put away my camera.
We grabbed large branches and started banging them hard against trees and yelling. After having broken our branches into small sticks from all the hitting, we proceeded down the trail at a slightly faster pace.
We spotted the bear again, farther away from the path than it had been. Avoiding all possibilities of eye contact, we trekked ahead, passing it, but stealing quick glances backwards to make sure it wasn't following us.

Holding my stick, I realized I could not do much with it, but could not stop to pick up a new one. Instead I tried grabbing random branches that looked dead but were actually still attached to the trees.
Brooke told me to yell, but I was dead quiet. I was too busy thinking of the multitude of ways we would get eaten by, mauled by, or ripped apart by the bear.

A "safe" distance away, we heard rustling in the bushes directly to our left. Later we found out it was another bear.

We came up the edge of the hill, and saw our vehicle, as well as the vehicles of the family who had left the falls long ago.
They said they had been waiting for us to come out, because they had spotted the bear crossing the road and walking directly onto our hiking path.
Thankfully I lived to tell the tale. Perhaps a bit of a dramatized version of the tale, but I was truly scared. There's a small chance it would have attacked us {but then again, how can I actually know that?}, but thankfully it did not!

I love hiking, but next time I will think twice before going into the middle of the woods in a very remote area with just one other person.
Or else I will at least bring my flare gun, shot gun, bear spray, bag of long sticks and 20 friends.
So I did not come away with a good picture of the bear, but rather a great story of my near encounter with death. I was thankful for the bears we did see while in our vehicle and was likewise thankful they didn't come join us in our tent.
That night as we were sitting around our campfire, I kept hearing noises {the people next door's fire} and was convinced it was a bear. Now I have a fear of bears being everywhere.
Our favorite camping game was, "What would you do if there was suddenly a bear right _____?" We had some good scenarios and reactions drawn up. Did any of them actually hold true during our actual time? No.
Morale of the story: Next time your mother tells you that you are going to get mauled by bears in the woods, listen to her and bring some bear spray.

Iguazu, Incredible, Interesting

A pleasant and completely unexpected surprise/highlight from my trip was Iguazu Falls in Argentina. I had never heard of them before but I do love waterfalls, so we went off to these falls on the border of Brazil and Argentina. Famed to be the widest in the world, I looked forward to seeing what they would be like. At the first stop, they were really nice, but I didn't quite understand why they were so epic... then we went to the next stop where you could see cascade upon cascade and I was overwhelmed with awe at the beauty and incredibleness of the Falls. I think there's about 250 cascades all in a row. It's pretty incredible. God's creation definitely is incredible.

This is the old boardwalk at the falls

There were hundreds of butterflies everywhere. They would land on you, taste the salt and then would stick around for quite a while even if you tried to wave them away. It was especially cool for the first ten minutes, then I kind of was creeped out by having all these crawly/flying things all over me. haha. But they still were beautiful and found in a myriad of colors. I have a lot more pictures of the different kinds, but I've decided to save those for me.


If you look past the first row of cascades, you can see it just keeps going in behind. Pretty amazing.



Up Next: I have no idea, because my life is a blur that blends together!! But I'm thinking it will be some penguins from Argentina! Stay tuned!