THAILAND.

Sawadee Ka! or HELLO :) Last week I returned from the most beautiful place I have ever been to in my life. Thailand. Not only was this trip visually mind-blowing, but some of the days I had there were no doubt some of the best days of my life so far. I am still daydreaming about the experiences I had and probably will for many months to come... ahhhhh...

LET'S START FROM THE BEGINNING.

So the whole reason (as if you really need one) behind going to Thailand in the first place was to celebrate two friends of mine getting married! My boyfriend and I have been planning and looking forward to this trip for at least five or six months before we actually took off, so it was very exciting once I realized it was actually happening. FYI I haven't left the country since I was like 12 or 13 when I did a Euro trip with Grandma Forte. Not exactly the same Euro Trip as this one. No absinthe involved. Anyway, I was super excited to finally get a stamp in my adult passport. (And I got TWO, bitches!)

Here lies our OFFICIAL ITINERARY:
(with pictures, everyone loves pictures)

Thursday, March 7th
JFK --> (15 hours) Bejing --> (5/6 hours) Phuket

layover in Bejing is how I scored an extra stamp, in case you were wondering.

Saturday, March 9th
Phuket --> drive 1.5 hours --> Khao Lak

Sat, March 9 - Tues, March 12
JW Marriot, Khao Lak

If you're thinking I skipped a day, I didn't. It just takes a really long time to get there. Anyway! A group of us were picked up from the airport hotel where we stayed the night before and off we went. The drive to Khao Lak was sooo pretty. Everything I saw was totally foreign to me, and I loved it. I meant to take pictures, but I was so lost in the moment and in awe of everything around me that I just forgot. I did however capture our excited faces right as we took off on our drive.

This is also when we learned there are basically no rules in Thailand.

Upon arrival to the JW Marriott, I really had no expectations for what my day ahead looked like. I should also mention that the wedding we were on our way to attend was going to be a half American wedding and half traditional Indian wedding. The festivities were (as we thought) going to begin the next day, but to our surprise the celebration would begin as soon as we pulled up and stepped foot outside of that car...

We were welcomed by a staircase filled with beautiful Thai women dressed head to toe in gold. There were bongos being drummed, photographers snapping our photo, so many welcoming smiles. Then the next thing I knew I was at the top of the staircase with a woman putting a fresh lei around my neck and another woman applying red wax above the center of my eyebrows. After traveling for a day and a half straight, I'm not sure if I was delirious but I for sure felt like I was dreaming for a quick minute there. Once I floated back into my body I was offered a refreshing beverage before checking in. I was officially in Paradise, and this would be my home for the next three nights.

 

I don't get to brag about this kind of stuff very often so yeah, our room was pretty ballin'. This day we were greeted with a Welcome Lunch followed later with a Welcome Dinner which both consisted of an elaborate buffet of amazing food and cocktails. It was so apparent that the families of both the bride and groom were so incredibly happy to have us all there. You could really feel the love.

You could also feel the paparazzi. They were everywhere! 

Sunday, March 10th

The first ceremony - Indian style. 

I was sooooooo excited about this day. I love learning about other cultures and this was a rare opportunity to fully indulge. I had my outfit ready, but absolutely zero insight as to what to expect. So of course, I dove in head first. And so it began, with a man on a horse...

Rah looked like he was born for this moment. He was so happy.

Whistles and clappers were going crazy with their sounds. Drums were being played. Everyone was cheering. This dance party turned into a moving parade until we all had fully migrated to the beachfront ceremony that looked like this: 

Yep.

I'm pretty sure everyone who saw this that wasn't attending the wedding must have thought they were a prince and princess or something. It was unreal. 

Oh yeah, and this is how we looked:

So many COLORS! Anywho - followed by the beach ceremony was another massive dinner followed by performances followed by an all-night after party that I think I might just keep off the blog. Some things are just too priceless to share with the world ;)

Monday, March 11th

Daytime Pool Party + American Wedding Ceremony

This was the last night of wedding festivities along with being our last night in Khao Lak. The pool party was just straight GOOD VIBES. We were serenaded all afternoon by a violinist, a sax player, and a guy on the bongos. The weather was perfect. The bar was open. The people were groovin'. It looked a little somethin' like this:

 

And the nighttime... Oh man, the nighttime...

It was beautiful in so many ways.

The experiences I had here in the South of Thailand were like something out of a dream. It is a place and time that I could never forget. And to my friends, who's love we celebrated, I wish you the best that life has to offer and a life of never-ending happiness together. I love you guys!

**********************************************************************

The next part of my trip is where I got to see Thailand for real. 

Tuesday, March 12th

Phuket --> Chiang Mai

Now, for those of you who don't know, Chiang Mai is the most culturally significant part of Thailand. It's about a two hour flight from Phuket and a completely different part of the country than we had just experienced. Our hotel alone was entirely different, but also totally beautiful. Surrounded by green and flowers I had never seen before, this was now our home for the next three nights...

^ The Lobby - Upon arrival we were greeted by the cutest little Thai lady named Nita. She greeted us with tea and a cold towel. She was so sweet! Insta-love.

^ This is outside our room, which I thought of as our oasis.

Wednesday, March 13th

Quite possibly the best day of my life. If not, then it was DEFINITELY in the top five.

So before I begin here, let me just point out that the following events ALL took place in the same day. It's crazy, I know. But this seriously happened. Before it all went down, we had plans to start our morning off with an elephant tour at 8am and kept the rest of the day sort of tentatively planned.

On our way to see the elephants, a man named Tom picked us up. In some of the best English we have heard a native speak thus far, he introduced himself along with our driver named "Beer". Tom and Beer were definitely my kind of dudes. Tom tells us on our way to see the elephants that it is National Elephant Day of Thailand! SERIOUSLY??? How the hell did we get so lucky to happen to land in Thailand and decide to unknowingly go see elephants on their national holiday.

DUMB LUCK.

I was already excited, but this just pushed me over the edge. Oh, and he also said that on our way to the elephant party (in my head everything that had to do with elephants from this moment forward was known as "the elephant party") we would be stopping at a butterfly farm and orchid sanctuary. 

PERFECT. 

And so our day unfolded as follows...

First stop: The Orchid Sanctuary

Next, butterflies:

Then of course, THE ELEPHANTS!

I fed them. They eat bananas by the bunch! They also love giving hugs.

I watched several of them paint with their noses!

Elephants are crazy talented.

So next, we just HAD to ride one. Wouldn't you???

Our elephant was named Billy. He's 32. FYI: Elephants live to be about the age of 80 and they can have about 5-6 kids in their lifetime, similar to humans.

Elephant day in Thailand grants the elephants a massive buffet of food. We didn't get to see them devour all of this yumminess, but I still managed to snap a photo of the feast:

Post elephant party, it was barely noon, so we thought that shooting guns in the wild obviously was the next thing to do. And so we did.

In Thailand they don't even ask for identification when letting you use one of their guns. They actually barely look at your face. They just take your money and say, "pick one".

We each picked a .45 mm and it was awesome.

Next up, we found our way to Tiger Kingdom where my dreams literally came true. I'm not sure if it was my childhood obsession with Aladdin, but my entire life I had dreams of one day being able to pet a tiger and share a moment with this beautiful creature. 

and holy bananas, DREAMS CAN COME TRUE!!!

But ^^ these were only the small cats. It was a strategy to ease in for the big boys.

Since sharing pictures of my tiger experience with friends, I have been asked a lot if the tigers were sedated. So if you are wondering the same - I will say that I would assume they must have been, given the fact that I basically spooned one and he didn't eat my face off. But, they were still fully alert and would occasionally get up and look around and you internally freak the FUCK out.

Here is what happened when we met the big cats:

Okay so in the moment, I kinda felt like I was playing with a big kitty. Looking back, I'm like HOLY SHIT BALLS! Did I really do that?!?

I think that's kinda how life is though, ya know?

Later that night we met up with friends we were traveling with along with a friend who happened to be traveling in Chiang Mai at the same time...

What an incredible day. The earrings I'm wearing in this photo are actually made from orchid petals taken from the orchid sanctuary we had been to earlier that day.

Thursday, March 14th

last full day in Chiang Mai

Our morning started at 7am as we embarked on a two hour drive up into the mountains where we would be ziplining through the Thai jungle for two and a half hours. My boyfriend and I signed up with a tour group to do this. Our group consisted of a dude from London (who soon became a friend of ours) and five other people from China who spoke zero english. They just laughed a lot.

Here is what we experienced:

It was prettay, prettay, prettay awesome.

So overall, you can see that my first trip to Thailand as well as my first trip to Asia was no doubt a great one. The last night we had was coincidentally my boyfriends 26th birthday so let me just tell you - we did it right, the best way you could possibly bring in a birthday in a foreign country.

We drank.

We watched Muay Thai.

We drank some more.

We met up with our friends.

We made friends.

We partied with ladies and lady-boys.

We were pretty sure they were also hookers.

I picked one up, literally.

and I realized, that this was only the beginning...

I am 25 years old. I have my ENTIRE future ahead of me. We live on this amazing planet and this trip to Thailand has just awoken my traveling spirit. I will see this world. I will see it all.

But until I see all that I want to see... I feel completely blessed to have had the experiences that took place on this trip. I came back to New York with a new sense of peace. I feel calm. I feel refreshed. I feel so appreciative of everything around me.

I feel alive.

And if you have read through this entire blog post and shared along with me, I encourage you to come visit this beautiful country as well. The country itself is incredibly gorgeous. But also, the people are genuine. They are beautiful inside and out. I fell in love with a place for the first time in my life and I am so happy to share my experience with anyone who cares to read about it. I love this life.

SWAAHAA!!!