SAWATDEEKA

Im back...from only the greatest most life-changing experience Ive ever had. Really though, the past few weeks have opened my eyes and shown me so much that I have never realized. I was able to learn so so much about the world, about people, about the gospel and especially about myself. But before I got to learn all that good stuff, I took a long couple days of flights, traveling, getting to know my group and constantly being confused about what time of day it was. So it all started Tuesday morning, July 10th.  I woke up at 4 am to get ready, finish packing and head to the airport. I had been super excited in the weeks leading up to this day, but I definitely woke up that morning with some nerves. I was still 98% excited, but the nerves were starting to kick in. I wasn't really nervous for anything specific, but probably just leaving in general. My mom helped me check my bag and then we hugged and said our goodbyes. Ive never been good with goodbyes and I don't think my mom noticed, but I may have shed a tear while waiting in line for security. The flight to LA was easy. Once we touched down at LAX I found baggage claim, which I was pretty proud of and then I found the International flight terminal where I would be meeting with my HEFY group. 

My face as I'm trying not to look completely lost in the LA airport. 

I was there pretty early so I sat and chilled and actually met this girl named Nusha. She had just spent 2-3 weeks in Israel. Super nice girl and it was cool being able to talk to her for a little bit. I then started walking around trying to find my group.  We were all supposed to be wearing our matching, green hefy shirts and as I looked around I saw one of my group members asleep in the corner. I laughed, walked away and was happy to know that I was at least in the right place. More of the group showed up and we awkwardly got to know each other. Once we all got there we checked our bags, made it through security and we split off to eat lunch. It's crazy to look back and remember how we didn't know each other. After this trip I feel like I've known these people my whole life. It's truly amazing how strangers from all over can come together to serve the people in a foreign country and we can all walk away best friends. I love it. Anyways, the first flight we had as a group was from LAX to Hong Kong and dang, was that a long flight. I sat window seat next to a kid named Zac. At the time I had no clue who he was and we said approximately 7 words to each other the whole flight. I would usually see him eating the sketchy plane food and I would ask him what it was and he would respond by shrugging his shoulders and saying "I don't know." Let's just say I didn't eat the plane food, and Zac got pretty sick. They didn't have great food, but they did have awesome movies. I watched mama mia, maze runner and wonder, which passed a good amount of time. The rest of the time I was listening to music and failing at falling asleep. It was sunny the whole flight which messed up everyone. The flight attendants came around with dinner and without there being a "nighttime" they came around for breakfast and that's when I knew I had no idea what time it was or even what day it was. We got to hong kong and had enough time to grab food then off to Bangkok. Quick flight, but long layover in Bangkok. A lot of people fell asleep on the ground, but me and elise hung out and cleaned off in the bathroom.  We were brushing our teeth and hair, washing our faces, putting deodorant on and we for sure felt like new women after that. 

Our first meal together, at Umami Burger, when we 

were still somewhat awkward strangers. 

The crew in Hong Kong!

Hong kong bathrooms are lit. 

Freshening up in Bangkok!

We all picked up some snacks at the Bangkok airport and these 

taro bean cakes were delicious.  I felt way cool eating something so not american. 

At this point it was Wednesday night I believe, so I hadn't changed clothes, slept or had a real shower in two full days...like I said, I was a confused mess. But so was everyone else. Next and final flight (for a few days anyways) was to Phuket. We arrived in Phuket 8am thursday morning. I remember on the drive to our hostel everyone was zonked out and I was trying my hardest not to fall asleep because it was BEAUTIFUL. Southern Thailand is one of the most amazing places I have ever been. I was able to stay awake for the beautiful drive and once we got to our hostel, we had about ten minutes to change into our swim suits and head out for the day! How Crazy?! No sleep in like 3 days, but I was so excited to head out and explore the islands. We all hopped on this boat with our driver Thaam and his crew. They took us to all the awesome islands and showed us around the coolest spots. At our first stop, we got to swim around (I literally slit my foot the first 3 minutes of being in the ocean, but that didn't stop me from having a bomb time) and then we went kayaking around the island to this secret cove. We found a jellyfish and some caves. It is seriously so beautiful there, I can't even explain how amazing it is.

This was the most wicked boat ride of my life. Thaam was not afraid to hit the waves hard and if we didn't hold on, we probably would've flown out. There were sometimes when I would feel rebellious so I would let go, but then Thaam would catch 10 feet of air and I was quickly reminded to hold on. 

Everyone was so happy to finally be in Thailand and not on a plane!

After swimming for a little bit, we hopped on the kayaks and got to explore around the islands. A dream. So much fun, but we were all super sore the next day from paddling through the waves. 

Each island we went to was just filled with green jungle. Seriously so beautiful, it's really the only way to explain it. 

Mini hearts!!!!

Found some sea slugs. 

The crazy thing is that at the time I thought that was going to be the coolest day of the trip... well I was mistaken because somehow each day got better and better. On the way back to the mainland, I asked Thaam if he could get me a job here and he says "yes, I let you drive boat with me." So if I randomly disappear, you know where I'll be. That night we had dinner and hit the hay. It's safe to say all of us slept really well that night. The next morning we were up at 7am for breakfast. Breakfast usually consisted of fruit like watermelon, bananas and pineapple, with cornflakes, toast, and some type of noodles or rice. Super good, but it was always strange eating rice and noodles for breakfast... next stop was Ya's cooking school. We got to make so many awesome dishes.  I was assigned to make a red curry, papaya salad and some other noodle dish. The smell of making the curry paste is the best smell ever. So while I was crushing up my curry paste, angel (one of the chefs) asked me if I like it spicy and I hesitantly said yes because I know thai food is super spicy, well she says "ok I give you 2 little peppers, thai people eat ten little peppers but americans cry after 2." haha. It was pretty spicy, but I think I could've gone for a few more. My favorite dish is called panaeng which is a cashew chicken curry and it's delicious. The pad thai was also a big hit. 

We started off by "bang bang chop chop" all the ingredients

making the curry paste - smelt soo good. 

Everyone got to make 2-3 dishes, so our tables were covered with different foods to try. It was the best because you got to try a little of everything. Also in thailand people love it when you eat their food and it's super offensive if you don't eat the food. So in restaurants, people will literally stand in the corner and just watch you eat. Intimidating, especially because we were always fed SO much so we rarely finished everything. Also the spoons in Thailand are the best and I wish I would've brought some home. After the cooking school, we headed to the Tiger Cave temple. 1200 stairs to the top and some of the stairs were like 3 feet tall. Super good workout especially because I didn't run at all on this trip...whoops. At the bottom of the hike there were monkeys everywhere!  I was so so excited to see the monkeys but they are terrifying in real life. If you even look them in the eye, they come after you. Before coming to Thailand I was wanting to have monkeys jump on my head and I wanted to pet the cute little creatures, but heck no would I have done that. They are still cute, but a lot scarier than I imagined. The hike was straight up this mountain and I have never been so drenched in sweat in my life. The hike was hard, but everyone made it in the end and it was so worth it. 

Whenever you had shorts above the knee, you had to wear these sarongs to enter the temples. 

Buddhists know whats up #modestishottest

First ones to the top! We watched a little storm roll in and got to walk around for awhile exploring, taking in the view and taking a bunch of pictures. The rain and breeze felt so good after sweating buckets to get to the top. Fun fact: In all the buddhist temples and holy places, no shoes are allowed. At school they also make the children take their shoes off before entering the classroom. Drew went to Brazil where he got worms from being barefoot for 2 seconds, but I was barefoot all the time. As far as I know I don't have worms... 

A guy from Louisville took this pic and I think that's dang cool. 

I can't even describe how crappy my camera was, but you get the idea. All the cool pics were taken with my friends' nice cameras. Next stop was a cave. Yes I said cave. When they told us we were going to a cave, everyone in the group started talking about how their parents specifically said NO CAVES. Well parents, we did it and we made it out alive to tell the story. 

The hike to the cave was through this beautiful jungle and all of a sudden we see these little huts, a laundry station and this stage where these monks lived and performed their ceremonies. Crazy. I still don't understand a lot about this culture but it is so cool. Im not sure the purpose of Monks but at each temple there are a few monks that are "in charge" of that religious site and they legit live there, like bam, right there in the middle of the jungle. Or we went to this other site in another cave (hah sorry parents) and there was a couple tents in the corner where they lived. Insane.  

Such a fun day and the monkeys only attacked one of our girls and stole a hand sanitizer from one of our boys. Poor little monkey is gonna have a stomach ache after downing that hand sanitizer. Another easy night of sleep and it was our last night in Phuket. The next morning we packed our bags for CHIANG MAI!!! but we made a pit stop at the elephant sanctuary and it was the greatest thing ever. They introduced us to all four elephants and I don't have any clue what their names were because they were thai but all the elephants were girls and one was pregnant! Anyone wanna go back in November to meet the little baby?! We fed them bananas and got to see where they slept. We were also introduced to the mahouts.  Mahouts are the life-long guardians of the elephants. They devote their lives to be with these elephants so that the elephant has someone they can trust. The mahouts literally never leave the elephant's side, they live in huts next to the elephants. So crazy, but how cool?! Then we headed to the mud pit. We rubbed the elephants with mud and of course we started a mud fight of our own. I think that's when we really bonded as a group. When someone takes a huge clump of mud/elephant poop and just drops it on your head, and so you just tackle them into the mud face first. Real bonding. While rubbing down the elephants minding my own business, the elephant decides to slap me across the face with her ear. It didn't hurt, but it launched dirt into my eye which was an issue because my hands were covered in mud. I blinked it out and was fine in the end, but not many people can say they've been slapped by an elephant. Check that off the bucket list ✓

Happy girl feeding this happy (not so) little elephant

After the mud pit we moved on over to the water pit. We were given a bucket and told to now wash off the elephants. We would scoop up the dirty water and throw it onto the animals.  Standing next to these humongous creatures and not having a worry in the world was the best thing ever. It was one of those moments when you can't even believe that you are actually doing this and you really are just trying to live in the moment and take it all in. It was super nice because they had photographers there so I didn't even have my go pro for most of the day and it was the best! I loved every minute of this morning and I want to go back so bad. After washing the elephants, and each other off, we headed to the showers for actual clean water and brushing time! We walked over to the showers and scrubbed the elephants, took more pictures and gave the animals more hugs and kisses. These animals might be 100x bigger than me and the monkeys but the monkeys were 3000x scarier. The elephants were so calm and straight up amazing. 

nice bum where ya from?

So unreal. I can't even explain this trip, but I hope these pictures show at least a little bit of how amazing this place is and the pure happiness that was felt by everyone. I don't recall a time where someone wasn't happy. Even when you ate something funky and you didn't feel good.... you were still happy because you were in THAILAND!

After a fun-filled morning, we showered off, headed to the airport and said our goodbyes to Phuket. Like I said earlier, I thought that this would be the highlight of the trip, but I was wrong once again... It got so much better.