A Whirlwind of a Trip

Warm winds, blue skies, clear sunshine, fresh air, white beaches, and green mountains…summer in the middle of winter <3
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So a quick update as to how my recent trip to Thailand went. First, I have to give you the background of the whole thing:

I received an invitation to help run a children's program at a conference in Thailand back in October. I really wanted to go, but I really didn't see how I could afford the trip as I'm still paying back my trip to the States from last summer. However, I started praying about it- asking that if the Lord wanted me to go, He would provide for it.  November came around and I still hadn't committed fully to going for fear that I wouldn't have the funds. A friend came to me near the middle of November and stated that they were going to pay for my trip to Thailand. At first I said, "Absolutely not"….and they assured me I would come around and be able to accept the gift. As I pondered whether or not to accept such an extravagant gift, the Lord reminded me that I had been praying for such a miracle.
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Three months later…

I was so happy to be leaving the cold, polluted Xiamen air. We got into Macau around 9pm and made our way to our hotel for the night- our flight had been changed and we had an overnight layover +6 hrs the next day, so we planned to sleep late and explore the next day- which we did. It was a super laid back day, but good as our last week in Xiamen was a bit tense.
Flew into Bangkok the following evening and, upon arrival of our second hotel, went out in search of mango sticky rice and pad thai. Which we found and devoured. It was so. good. We met up with our team the following morning to leave for the conference we were volunteering at.

Four hours later, I was stunned to be in a five star resort that had a massive swimming pool (complete with water slide and a waterfall) and we jumped into team meetings. This place was absolutely gorgeous! The air fresh, the skies a flawless blue, and the greens richer than I remember ever seeing before. It was heaven in winter. The first meeting/mixer was a bit rough, but dinner made up for the stress of figuring out logistics. The food at the place, oh my, the food was just too good. I can't even think of a word for how good this food was. Meal times, though normally a highlight of my day, became almost a sole event of the day. I almost lived for those meals. (I think I gained weight while there…. :)

The following day, we dove in head first to the kids program. I had the privilege of working with 8-9 beautiful, intelligent 7-11 year old foreign children (aka Not Asian). Over the course of the week I was able to build relationships with these kids who are living all over Asia with their families. It was a privilege and a joy to see how God used this week to encourage and build them up. Over all, though a bit exhausting, running around with 7-11 year olds, it was a blast! There were only two afternoons that we had to run a program so the remaining afternoons were spent by the pool catching a few rays, or taking a day trip into the neighboring city of Hua Hin. Over all though, God really used this week to speak to me about repentance, redemption, surrender, leadership, and courage. I will expound more on these points in later blogs- I don't want to overwhelm ya'll in this one… :)

We left the resort one week after arriving and drove back to Bangkok. After a terrifying set of taxi rides, we made it to the main market street and bought our bus tickets down to Koh Samui and did some, what I call, blitz shopping (aka running into a stall and bargaining and purchasing something in less than 5 minutes). After a very long overnight bus to Surathani, we waited for 2 hours for the bus to the ferry where we had a 1 and a half hour ferry to the island.

The waters of Koh Samui were simply stunning, varying between an emerald green and turquoise blue. It was incredibly hot as the sun is so intense that close to the equator, but it felt good. Especially on winter skin.
I never remember just how much of a Florida girl I am until I'm deprived of four main key items: Alligator jerky, Key Lime anything, sun, and beaches. When I don't have access to these, I am not a happy camper. Koh Samui gave me two of those fore necessities, so I was pretty happy…about as happy as a camel in a drought!

Sunday afternoon after arriving, and Monday were spent in the sun on the beach, eating green curry at a beachside restaurant, and freshly grilled corn on the cob, chicken, prawns, and spring rolls from a beach vendor. So good.

Tuesday we went on a sea safari, which was basically amazing. It consisted of a 1 hour boat ride to Anthong National Park (a group of islands in the Gulf of Thailand) to go snorkeling, hiking to a green lagoon, kayaking, relaxing on a beach, eating lunch, sight-seeing from the boat, and back to the main island for a short elephant ride. An absolute experience of a life time! (Also more on some of these adventures later)

Wednesday was a half beach day, half motorbike/cooking class day. I had the unique opportunity to take a cooking class at the Samui Institute of Thai Culinary Arts! It was definitely an awesome experience. I got to experiment with some native Thai ingredients and cooked three dishes: Green Curry with Chicken, Chicken Pad Thai, and Coconut Lime Chicken Soup. All of which were simply amazing. Especially the soup- I was kind of surprised by how savory it was!

Thursday we got up super early (aka 4:30am) to taxi back to the ferry to the bus, to the taxi, to the train station, to Bangkok. We got adventurous and took a train for the first time in Thailand- I've had bad experiences with every bus in Thailand so far, so Ray and I decided to see if taking a train would be a little less traumatizing- it was. It was wonderful, and we got to see so much more of the Thai countryside as we were traveling during the day and were not confined to a highway. It was definitely a good experience.

We flew out of Bangkok around 3 am, only to arrive exhausted back in Macau for another 8 hour layover. After getting kicked out of baggage claim (after mean lady number 3 woke us up), we went to the Hard Rock Hotel in hopes of finding breakfast. Apparently Macau does not believe in breakfast because we could only find one place that served breakfast. And boy was it worth every Macau Pataca it cost! There was an omelet station, rosemary and sausage roasted potatoes, smoked ham, three different international cheeses, blueberry and cheese brioche, cinnamon brioche, about 6 different types of bread, coffee, tea, grapefruit juice, cranberry juice, cereal, fruit, unlimited tea and coffee (and that was only the western side of the buffet…. (and they gave us clean cutlery half way through the meal!!!!!) Over all, it was a little much needed, well deserved pampering after being up almost all night traveling. We explored the historic sights of Macau for the rest of the day and enjoyed one last western meal before heading to the airport to return to Xiamen…..only to have our flight delayed.

No worries, a few hours later I found myself all snuggled up in my Xiamen bed. No movement, no bumps, no headlights in my eyes, no turbulence, no mean ladies to wake me up. =)