After several months of putting this off, I finally finished editing all my Thailand pictures. If you didn't know Roger and I had a 14 days long holiday in the land of smiles. We booked this trip 6 months before, and had be longing after it ever since. Words cannot describe how great it felt to hop on a plane on the 25th of December and leave horrible cold Norway behind.
Normally I don't care for entries that never seem to end, with a hundred pictures that all have a long paragraph written underneath. But for this one time, I'll make an exception.
A very excited Viva Leng at Schiphol Amsterdam airport.
The first day. Thoroughly applying sunscreen.
Meet my best friend, Lena! Purely by coincidence her family holiday was at the same time as ours, so we had 3-4 days together. This girl is always well prepared and well informed so she gave us some easy tips on the dos and don'ts in Phuket. Very helpful for ignorant and not so well prepared tourists such as ourselves.
One of the days we spent together with Lena we visited a cashew farm. And to be honest I had no clue that chestnuts grow on fruits rather than bushes, with only a single nut per fruit. No wonder chestnuts are usually a bit pricier than peanuts. I mean, how many nuts do you get from just one tree? So much work for so little.
Real life chestnut tree.
Following the farm we went to visit the
Gibbon Rehabilitation Centre, which I sadly have no pictures of. It never ceases to surprise and sadden me when I am reminded of how badly some people treat animals. One of the things we learned were that hunters would captivate baby monkeys or other animals, by shooting their parents. Then they walk around with those baby animals, offering tourists to take pictures with them for a small price. So please, if you are ever in Phuket or other places where they give you a similar offer, please think about how those animals were captured and what your money is supporting.
After visiting the rehabilitation centre, we went for what we thought would be a 2km walk through the jungle from Tonesai waterfall to another waterfall. To make a long story short, we ended up walking for maybe 3 hours through a relatively dense jungle. We had no idea where we were going, as the description in Lena's tourist book was far from the truth. People were no where to be seen nor did we see any signs with directions. One thing that we saw several of, were several signs which said 'Beware of wild animals'. Yikes. Luckily we made it out in one piece, and looking back at it now it was a really cool experience. All we saw in regards to dangerous animals, was one tiny lizard.
Happy face at Phi Phi island. And this is one of the downsides to putting off the editing for so long; looking at these pictures now makes me want to go back even more. This place was crowded with tourists, as we came here on one of those arranged boat trips. Beautiful nonetheless, and it is also the place where they filmed the movie
The Beach. Roger kept pondering about how there is no space between the mountains, but in real life there is a very large gap as you can see in the pictures.
I have actually been to Phi Phi islands before with my parents, circa 2002. But the hotel we stayed at was completely wiped away during the tsunami disaster in 2004. When we were booking our trip, I actually searched a bit after the hotel we stayed at, and it seems they rebuilt an exact replica.
A small glimpse of the insanity that is Bangla road. Growing up in a small Norwegian city with 120 000 inhabitants, I was quite taken back at how...different things were there. Seriously, I just have to ask, why do ping pong shows seem to be so immensely popular? We talked about it, Lena, Roger and I, all admitting we felt a slight curiosity, but in the end decided against. Probably a wise decision.
Out of all the things I inherited from my dad, I got the
Asian flush, meaning you turn red when you drink. When I was younger I always found it rather funny, and kind of cute how daddy would always turn tomato red when he had been drinking. Now, on the other hand, I can assure you my opinions have shifted. This picture is probably not a very good example of my "glow", but if you look closely I do seem rather red compared to my usual yellow self.
Celebrating New Years in Phuket was such a memorable experience. Here is a cute picture of my cute boyfriend at the hotel buffet. They gave us these handmade (kind of ugly, but in an adorable way) flower necklaces which we saw them make hundreds of a few hours earlier. Our dinner we had at the event held at the hotel, accompanied with some sort of show which was really nice. Then we made our way to Patong beach to watch the fireworks with Lena and her family.
Compilation of Asian and Western (inspired) desserts.
Unfortunately I didn't manage to capture a good picture of the
hot air balloons, but my God if it isn't the most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed. It was such an overwhelmingly breathtaking experience, seeing hundreds of balloons lighting up the sky. In addition to those, they were shooting up fireworks all over the place.
In hindsight I am kind of regretting spending my 100bath on these glasses, rather than buying one of those hot air balloons. They did make for a lot of fun pictures though.
And this is the first picture I took in 2012. Actually, the past couple of New Years have been sort of a failure for Roger and I due to unforeseen events. So standing together, barefoot, on a beach in Thailand so far away from was really a special experience. Everything just felt so surreal.
We actually witnessed someone being smashed in the head with a beer bottle, and Roger saw a random teen carrying a gun (yikes, but just as a disclaimer, this was the only time we didn't feel 100% safe in Thailand, the rest of our was stay was pure bliss) so we headed into Häagen-Dazs. They were one of the few places that had open, if you exclude bars with half naked girls dancing on the tables, plus we really wanted a milkshake.
Roger bought 3 pairs of new shoes at this huge outlet outside town, along with some clothes as well. Personally I didn't do much shopping, because I had a hard time finding something I really liked. I did, however, pick up an amazing purple tie dye shorts for only 100 bath.
We rented a taxi for an entire day, which is counts as 5-6 hours, where we drove around and saw several attractions such as the big Buddha pictured above.
Around the temple you could see cats wandering around, completely unaffected by all the tourists. So cute! In this picture you can also see a photo of the Thai royal family who are just adored by the locals, in comparison to the Norwegian royals who the public have a rather indifferent stance towards. I'm sure we saw at least one picture of the Thai royals every single day.
As we visited the temple right after New Year, the place was relatively packed compared to normal. Our taxi driver explained to us that they had come to wish for happiness and good luck in the new year. I was also given a bracelet by the monks, which you can see on the monk's lap. It will supposedly give me good luck in 2012. I'm actually still wearing it, and my year has been pretty good so far. Hm.
Next stop was the Wal Chalong temple, which was also packed with people due to the new year. They had these super loud firecrackers that sounded almost like gunshots.
Our last stop of the day was Phuket Orchid and Garden Thai Village. This is apparently a somewhat new and unknown place, meaning the whole garden was practically empty! It felt so nice, for once, to escape the hordes of tourists that you'll meet everywhere else in Phuket. And as much as I'm not really a mushy person, especially not in the presence of others, it was kind of romantic as well.
You can see Roger's blue eyes very clearly in this picture. And as much as I have always been an avid lover of brown hair + brown eyes, I have to admit there's something really pretty about blue eyes. Check out his cute elephant necklace as well.
For the first time in my life, I finally accomplished to take an "oh this is just me, being completely unaware of the camera but still looking gorgeous"-picture. Trust me, I have tried so many times to take such a picture, but I always end up looking either very pissed off (because that's just how my face looks relaxed) or super awkward.
And here we are at a night market (?) in Phuket town, having the time of our lives. As a back story to this picture, Roger and I are both vegetarians and needless to say one of the things we were most anticipating about our Thailand holiday was the food. But we actually had a tough time finding good food, which is sort of a contradiction in itself if you have any experience with Thai food. I suppose it's due to the westernization of the cuisine, to fit the taste buds of picky tourist. Right now I can't recall what we ordered, but I know it came with tofu/bean curd, we both loved it, and it practically didn't cost us a thing. That's the good life.
We went back the following day, hoping to find the same market because at that point we didn't know it was a night market. But in the end we just ended up walking around in the scorching heat looking for food. All we found was this horrible fast food chain store where I had the most disgusting soup I have ever had in my entire life. I guess this just goes to show that some of the best things in life are not always planned.
This is also a pretty good picture of my Raybans, which my mum got me for Christmas. They are the larger version, and are just beyond gorgeous. I absolutely love these sunglasses!
Enjoying our last day with a mango and a banana smoothie. Sigh. I remember being so disappointed of my barely visible tan the last couple of days. Because as much as I wanted to, I didn't tan very well, despite the blazing sun and my Asian genes (my dad tans so, so easily). It's kind of hard trying to decide between being considerate of my skin in terms of aging or a healthy golden glow. I still haven't decided what I should prioritize.
My favourite picture out of the 400 I took during our trip. This is Kata beach by the way, for those who are interested.
Bliss.
And lastly, a picture of an amazing pizza we had at Suvarnabhumi Bangkok airport. So fatty, and so delicious. A perfect ending to a perfect trip.
Sigh. I wish I could go back.
Spring has finally come to Stavanger, and with the sunny weather we have been blessed with these last couple of days I have been really inspired to start painting my nails again. Normally I'm not big on wearing loud colours, but for some reason I love colourful polishes. And in addition to that I have also been obsessing over having one or two nails in a different accent colour, as shown in picture where one of my fingers have been painted white. It just gives off a really fun spring kind of vibe, but in contained amounts so I don't feel too cutesy or girly.
