Weekend: Chatuchak and Koh Samui

It's been a few days since I last posted, but you'll have to forgive me because I was having an island vacation 😍

Friday morning, Tara and I went to the orphanage where she volunteers. She's paired with a little girl who's almost two and every week she goes to play with her and feed her lunch. The orphanage is called Pakkred Babies Home and it was very nice and clean and all the children I saw looked well. I didn't take any pictures there because there were signs posted everywhere not to, and I didn't want to be disrespectful. It's sad how many kids were there, but they all seemed pretty happy and well taken care of.

After that, Tara and I went to Chatuchak (Chat-a-chuck) Market. Chatuchak is a weekend market, but it's open on Fridays too, although not every stall is open then. The market is composed of all these little back alleys and it's gigantic. Tara has been there quite a few times and we still got turned around. There are certain stalls that she's been to once and really likes, but can never find her way back. For some reason, though, we stumbled upon a lot of the ones she wanted to go back to.

I was able to buy gifts for almost everyone on my list while I was there. And of course I got some things for myself. Thailand is almost entirely cash-based, so that was different than back home. The currency here is the baht and about ฿100 = $3. When you go to an ATM the only bills that come out are ฿1000, which is roughly $30. That's the biggest bill they have, so a lot of the vendors at Chatuchak wouldn't even accept them because they didn't have enough change. 

Friday evening, Jeremy, Tara, Brady, Carson, and I got on a plane to Koh Samui. Koh means "island" in Thai, but the word samui is up for debate. There's a type of tree on the island called mui and the Malay word saboey which means "safe haven" could be what it's derived from, but no one really knows.

On the island we stayed at a resort called Melati. It was amazing! We had our own little villa with a private pool and we were close to the bigger pool and the beach. In one of the plants by the door to one of the rooms in the villa there was a birds nest with eggs in it. Most of Saturday we hung out by the pool and walked on the beach a little. Jeremy and Brady went on a short kayak ride in the ocean, too. But after lunch it started raining pretty bad and didn't stop until late, so we watched some random hotel TV and had an amazing dinner.

This is chocolate lava cake from dinner on Saturday night. Every dish there was plated so beautifully that I almost didn't want to eat it. 

Sunday we were a little more adventurous and went snorkeling. The water down there is amazing and the clusters of islands covered in greenery reminded me of the movie Moana. The snorkeling was awesome. We were out by a coral reef and the company we were with had guides to take you about 500 meters along the edge of it, all while pointing out sea life to us. We saw rays, giant clams, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea slugs, clownfish, and angel fish, along with a bunch of other fish that no one told us the names of. 

On the snorkeling tour we met some other tourists/vacationers, which was cool. It's interesting to learn about other people and why they chose to come to Thailand. There was a German couple and an American woman, and on the Elephant World tour we met people from Canada, the Philippines, and Sweden (maybe?). It's cool to see how many different people can be brought together randomly in a country that none of us belong to.

Sunday night, we had dinner in our villa. A chef and server came and set up shop on the deck and we had a really nice four course dinner there. 

We had som tum (papaya salad) with a soft shell crab for an appetizer; tom yum soup (hot and sour soup with mushrooms) with sea bass in it; then chicken, prawn, fried rice with pineapple, raisins, and peppers in it for the main course; and finally mango and sticky rice for dessert. The fried rice with fruits in it was to die for and I think I might have a mango addiction since coming here. My aunt says that the mangoes here are sweeter than back home, so hopefully I haven't ruined my tastebuds for American mangoes. 

It was an eventful weekend, but a fun and relaxing one as well. I can't believe I only have 5 days left here!