First off, let me say that my vacation in Thailand was exactly what I needed. Totally relaxing and stress-free. Krabi is a beautiful beach community, and the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. I spent time at the beach and at the pool. I went kayaking and snorkeling. I got a massage every single day (insanely cheap! average price for an hour was around $8 USD! Two scoops at Haagen-Dazs cost more than a one hour massage!). I ate loads of Thai food. I slept in. I cleared my head.
View from my hotel room - it had direct pool access!
Lots of fresh seafood
Delicious Thai pancake with bananas and chocolate!
I bought 3 pairs of fake Ray-Bans in 3 days. For about $20 USD in total.
Boats along the beach
Street food! They grill the corn on the cob to order - AMAZING.
One day we took a private boat tour - no fiberglass here!
Spent the day at sea, going around to islands and lagoons for swimming, kayaking, and snorkeling. It was SO beautiful everywhere.
Rock cliffs like this everywhere
All our boats parked along the beach
Coming into shore
(Beyonce) Pad Thai
Pineapple fried rice!!!
In short, it was wonderful. And it gave me a chance to remember that I am insanely lucky right now. One of my friends pinned a travel post on Pinterest that had the picture shown below. I did this tour a few days ago. Same boats, same beautiful scenery. My life is on Pinterest. People pin my life on Pinterest. I mean - how insane is that?! Stuff like this makes it easier when I get frustrated or miss the US.
Speaking of missing home, I've loved seeing your photos and posts on all the various social media sites.. but it was a little sad to not be in any of the pictures too.
One of the things that I feel very lucky to have is a very solid group of long-term friends. I grew up in the same town for almost my entire life - we moved to good ole Temple Terrace when I was about 3. So I went to school with the same group of kids from kindergarten until senior year - and some of us went to college together too! Even though we all have our own lives now, it seems like around the holidays, when everyone is back home, I always got to see all of my old friends. We would get together like old times - sometimes even in the same restaurants we used to love or with the same snacks that our parents would put out for us after school when we were young - and just catch up. I missed that this year. I was sad about that.
Some of my friends with kids got together right before the holidays. I've never even met some of those babies before. They could be walking and talking by the time I do meet them - weird, right? I was sad to not see them all together - sad to not see their little babies while they are still tiny.
(Side note - a co-worker of Stephanie's was also staying in Krabi with his family so we went over to their resort one day. I spent the day playing with their two little boys. Me! Playing with children haha!)
I've been going to the same Christmas Eve service with my mom for as long as I can remember. I grew up going to the same church for years and years, and my mom is still a very active member there, so I would always see familiar faces at church on Christmas Eve. The service itself has gone through a few different renditions over the past few years, but the final minutes of singing "Silent Night" in nothing but candlelight haven't changed, and that has always been my favorite part. I didn't get to do that this year.
Thailand isn't a Christian country, but the people were overwhelmingly friendly and excited to wish us a Merry Christmas. A group of people were singing Christmas songs outside of a massage place one night while I was getting some foot flexology done, so that was nice. I had champagne and lobster for Christmas Eve dinner (a four course meal was only $75 USD!), and a beautiful view of the ocean for lunch on Christmas day, but it wasn't quite the same as being back home for the holidays.
Christmas Eve dinner at The Hilltop Restaurant
So beautiful at sunset!
I know this kind of looks not very delicious - but I can assure you, it was amazing. Grilled lobster and prawns with a Thai dipping sauce. (But it's still no match for cocktail shrimp and gossip!)
Christmas Day
So - Christmas in Thailand was absolutely awesome. Beautiful, relaxing, peaceful, and delicious. But I did miss home and all the people there. Although, and this is sad, I'm kind of glad that I didn't go home because I can't imagine the pile of work/emails that would accumulate. I went back to work today, and I still felt like 100 things needed immediate attention just because I had Christmas Eve and Christmas off. (Many of the countries I work with most often in the region do not have Christmas as a public holiday.) So, my restful vacation of zero stress was short lived, but definitely much appreciated. And I'm heading to Bali on Friday, so life isn't so rough after all :)
Random statue at the hotel
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