The rest of our time in Thailand

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Hello,

Since I wrote the last blog, we have been visiting the south of Thailand. One of our friends from England came to visit us for two weeks, she decided that she wanted to visit some islands and spend some time exploring Bangkok.
We started our little tour in Phuket, an island on the South West coast. We were a little disappointed with the area as it was really touristy and felt like we could be in any country- it had a large shopping centre, cinema and all of the different fast food outlets that you could imagine. However, the thing that really struck us was how friendly the people were. We meet 3 different people who went out of their way to help us; either finding us somewhere to stay, helping to show us where to go and how to get there. Kindness doesn't cost anything but it makes you feel lovely inside when someone is very kind towards you.

As well as Phuket, we visited 2 islands called Koh Phi Phi Don and Koh Tao. These were very pretty islands, particularly Koh Tao as it was quieter. The reason we visited these islands were because they are meant to have fab snorkelling around their shores.... the guide books weren't wrong. We spent hours in the sea spotting lots of different multicoloured tropical fish feeding on the coral. There was lots of exciting creatures, we spotted rainbow fish, angel fish, a huge hermit crab and a green sting ray. The most exciting thing we spotted by far though was Black Tip Reef Sharks! They were only about 1 metre long but it was fantastic to watch them move so quickly with such little effort. I was lucky enough to have a shark swim within a metre of me!! It was patrolling the reef and swam right past me, turned around and swam back. We found if we moved quickly the sharks would scare and would swim away but by floating still in the water they would get closer.

After spending some of our time on islands, we caught a boat and then bus to Bangkok. The journey took us a whole day and by the time we arrived we were very tired. Whilst in Bangkok we visited Wat Pho and Chatachauk Market again. We wanted to show Jacqui the reclining Buddha, all the beautiful ceramic decoration, as well as some of the funny things you can buy in the market. We found a lovely little food stall, full of interesting dishes. It was a hive of activity- full of locals eating and shouting out to each other. We were served by a boy who was probably about 10 years old and was keen to practice his English.

One new thing that we did was visit the Grand Palace. This is a group of very beautiful buildings enclosed behind a tall wall. As the name says it contains the Kings palace (although he doesn't stay there very often now, it's mainly used for people who come to visit him), his throne which was beautifully decorated and protected by a security guard, as well as lots of temples and museums. In one of the most famous temples, there is a statue called 'The Emerald Buddha'. This is a statue of Buddha but carved out of jade, an expensive green stone. They are usually carved out of stone or metal statues painted gold. The reason this is such a special Buddha is because it was taken to Laos (another country) for over 226 hundred years but in 1778 the Thai army were told by the King to go and take it back. Also, it was originally covered in plaster and no one knew how important it was, until a bit of plaster chipped off the statue's nose and showed the green behind. A monk noticed this and after checking more, they realised it was made from jade. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take photos inside the temple so I haven't got a picture but I'm sure you could find one on the Internet. I was amazed though- it's a lot smaller than you first think it will be.

Along with seeing things, we have also been trying new food. The street our hostel is on in Bangkok has a great selection of food stalls, we have tried lots of food but we have recently tried Koew Soy. This is a curried coconut noodle soup with deep fried wantons on top. It had a lovely taste but unfortunately it had some not very nice bits of meat so I didn't like it that much.

From Thailand we headed onto Cambodia, an amazing country I will tell you about in a new blog.

Hope you are all ok and enjoying the nicer weather. Take care, Miss T.

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