July 2019
After a phenomenal time in Japan, I returned to my favorite country in the world for holiday. Thailand has incredible nature, delicious food, and friendly people.
This part of the trip began in the traditional Thai city of Chiang Mai. The old town area is enclosed within this wall and has several famous gate entrances.
Many beautiful temples throughout the city.
7/11 is great in Thailand. This family commune in the jungle made their own. They are rice farmers and run an elephant sanctuary.
This 3 month old baby elephant cannot eat bananas yet, she will only drink her mothers milk until she is two.
Elephants are smart, this one is trying to cut out the middle man. I am the middle man.
The elephants are treated well here. They are fed 500 pounds of food a day and get a mud massage. I thought it was so funny when the host said, “follow the elephant.” I hope I hear this sentence many more times in my life.
After bathing the elephants, the family prepared a delicious meal for us with an incredible view.
A lot of chill dogs in Thailand.
From Chiang Mai I went onto Bangkok to meet up with my best friend from San Diego, Dan.
Saw and ate some wild street meat.
It was great to reconnect with Thai friends I met at full moon party last year who live in Bangkok. They were able to recommend some great places and showed us some new games. We were drinking and playing games, but unlike in America, the games did not involve drinking. Instead when you lost you had to eat a lime. We also did not really understand the game. I am pretty sure Joy was just making up the rules so that everybody else lost.
After two fun nights in Bangkok, we went to the island of Koh Phangan for Jungle Party and Full Moon Party. We ended up getting a lot more.
We had great bungalows right on the beach and an awesome little resort called Munchies next door. The food was phenomenal and we made good friends with the resort owner, Steph, who is from Quebec. She has lived on the island for a while so she was able to tell us about some awesome spots and things to do other than the big parties. Such as a bamboo reggae lounge and an open air jungle club.
View from Dan’s bungalow at low tide.
Gotta get them coconuts.
Full moon party is a wild party and a total tourist event.
At Full Moon Party, you party till sunrise.
We both did the fire jump rope, but did not get the footage.
This is Holly Stone, it is an open air club in the jungle open once a week.
Good boys everywhere you go.
We partied till sunrise every night and learned to kite surf during the days. Ando was a super chill coach. We learned how to do this over 3 days with pretty much only hearing: “delete,” “black,” “red,” “10 o’clock,” “2 o’clock,” and “find the power.”
Ando lives in this beach hut with his girlfriend and cat and teaches people how to kite surf.
He also takes some pretty awesome photos.
After Koh Phangan, we headed to Phuket and immediately took a day trip to Krabi to do some world famous rock climbing.
I never thought I was gonna make it up this rock. Wanted to quit 3 times, but stuck with it. It felt pretty great getting to the top.
Dan took the harder route.
This was our climbing area. Felt great to take a dip after.
After Krabi, we went back to Phuket and had a pretty wild night out on Bangla Rd. Before doing that, I decided to get a coconut and catch a sunset. These guys have the craziest job I have ever seen. They flip up into the parachute to control it with no harness or anything.
Back to Bangala boxing club to see Muay Thai.
One of the craziest streets in the world.
This wrapped up our time in Thailand and the next day we headed to Bali for a week.