We left Calgary (YYC) at 12:30pm and flew to Vancouver (YVR) then to Seoul Korea (ICN) then to Phuket (HKT)with Korean Airlines and arrived at 11:15pm July 4 '2019.
Once we arrived in Vancouver both Jessica's cell & my cell were going crazy with voicemail, txt messages and emails. \240Our basement motion went off 2 hours after we left the house. I had my reluctant favorite red head go check it out!
Would you believe business has been very slow since January and leave for vacation (1st hour) and then my favorite client reach out and needed Server quotes. \240I guess I have to work now. This isn't a easy quotation - 6 vendors to engage.
Finally after a veryyyyyyyyy lloooonnngggggg 18 hours of of traveling we made it!!!!
Jessica the model....
Our hotel by the airport as we arrived quite late, and because of the jet lag, we were up super early, ate our breakfast and had time to relax at the pool.
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Our first night we stayed close to airport at the Perennial Resort at C$125 from midnight to noon checkout. Breakfast cost B$250. We are moving to the Village at Coconut Island!
This is the master suite in our villa 82. Very beautiful but had a few minor problems.
It cost 1000 bht to get to coconut island. Our driver was very friendly and his name is Superman, he stopped at a few places for me to get my SIM card and water/beer.
The Village is very quaint and quiet, very nice for relaxing. There are a few restaurants and two pools. We were all quite tired when we arrived so we unpacked our clothes, grabbed a cold brew and headed to the pool for some relaxing in the sun. I bought three drinks as a treat and spent 50 dollars canadian! Too much if you ask me. For dinner we went to the Italian restaurant called Kucina at our resort, meal was delicious and costed us 80 dollars canadian. Jess ate chicken stuffed with feta cheese and mushrooms, Mom had a chicken ceaser salad, I ate carbinara pasta with one slice of bacon. I fell asleep at the table I was so exhausted, even tho I'm suppose to be the fun guy..... after dinner we watched a fire show for a few minutes.
After the show we all went to sleep, we found, a cockroach in the bathroom early the next am.... gross. There are many,many, many strange and rather large Insects here. One of which is a huge ass spider that we see every day, so we named him Charlie after Charlottes Web as he looks like a boy spider as he is black with long skinny legs with a hint of blood red on his abdomen.
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We worked out in the am, then ate our free buffet for breakfast. After we lounged at the pool, drank a beer and went down the lame water slides. Jess and Dad swam in the ocean and got a few bug bites. In the afternoon we called Superman our new \240driver and went to Old Town Phuket for ice cream, shopping, chicken satay and site seeing. It was very hot, Jess got grumpy and burnt. Superman was telling us because it is low season with less tourists that he goes days without taxi'ing people around. So we got his contact information and he is now our 'driver'. He is quite friendly, but we all have a hard time understanding him.
Chicken satay, with our beer to cool down at a small hip restaurant in Old Town.
It wasn't what we thought it was going to be like in old town, just older buildings, not much history.
After our stroll through town we went back to the pier and ate at the local seafood restaurant, it was a unique experience. We ate some calimari, shrimp and rice with pineapple and pad Thai.
Lame Hin Seafood Restaurant-MANY choices on the menu, also a few street cats or as trash cats as I like to refer to these small demons. One of which kept pestering Jess while she ate her meal. (Later named this orange trash cat Henry as we saw him on the dock many times)
Temple at Old Town
Awe cute
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What a crazy, busy day we had, We booked a day long tour to James Bond island with the tour company SeaStar. The company overbooked and had way too many people on our speedboat. It was quite crowded and very hot. The tour took us to four different islands. The first island was called Khai Nai Island (egg). Where we could snorkel and swim. Mom got stung by something on the arm - perhaps a jellyfish... the island was very tiny, but beautiful and hot.
We then travelled to the famous James Bond island at Ao Phang Nga National park which was stunning and really cool to see. We just walked around and saw the cool caves where the movie 'golden gun' was filmed. There were many other tour companies there as well, it was quite packed with tourists.
After we took our speed boat for a 45 min drive to a Muslim island where we had a delicious lunch buffet with chicken, rice and veggies. After we did a very random tour of the small village on the island. It is a self-sustaining island with rough 120 families on it. They live on tiny houses on the ocean with a school, hospital and tourist shops... it looked very poor and run down. We almost got lost traveling through the very hot market. We jumped in the speedboat once again and went to a third island where we got to kayak around the caves. Jess was quite disappointed because she thought she was going to kayak herself around, However, each person had their own guide to tour them around. It was beautiful with cool caves, even large jellyfish. Onto the next and final island which was a quick tour, then we sped back to the pier at thirty one knots. It was quite a long day full of tourists, sweat and people.
After we got back to our resort, had a cold shower went to the KoKo Japanese Restaurant. The food was good but very small portions with expensive price. However, Dessert was terrible! Very nice ambiance overlooking the resort. Dad dozed off at end of dinner (he did that the night before as well). He said waking up at 3:30am is too early and all day in the sun.
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We went for a bike tour of the island this morning around 8am with two Australian women. We saw many rather large spiders...
We also visited a school, 'hospital' which was more of a clinic and some beautiful viewpoints.
Our new Australian friends with our tour guide.
The view from a mans house from Switzerland.
Local 'party' beach full of trash, soooooo sad.
Local 'party' beach full of trash, soooooo sad. The sand was brought in from who knows where.
We booked a night market tour with our hotel for 300 bht each. There were 15 of us from our hotel, including our new friends from Australia.
The market was crazy busy with hundreds of shops selling mostly the same items such as fake designer sunglasses, watches and purses. And many clothing and jewelry. Jess found Daniel Wellington watches and talked him down to 500 bht each, mom bought a cute pair of REAL Ray Ban sunglasses ;). The market was quite busy and super hot, we were all very sweaty.
The market also had a bunch of food of course- from fried insects such as crickets, to bubble tea, fried chicken, fish balls, squid, shrimp, fresh mango, salads, spring rolls, pad Thai and so much more. We bought beer, corn, gyoza dumplings with pork and mushrooms and pork and chicken skewers. For dessert we tried the Nutella and bananas fried crepes, which were crispy and a delicious treat!
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As the past few days were quite busy and chaotic, we decided to have a relaxing day at our hotel, pool side of course. Mom and dad get up at the crack of dawn to grab early morning lattes, the people working at the restaurant know him now and bring them to Dad when comes to beach. We worked out, had our usual breakfast of oatmeal, eggs, bacon, omelette, fruit and yogurt with our 2nd go around of \240lattes.
I always thought Dad was loud and annoying, I was slightly wrong. Each evening as we are waiting for the boat ride to Cocount island, we have encountered large Asian tour groups..... not much more needs to be said here. The first night Jess got elbowed in the rib cage by an old lady, then stepped on during the boat ride. The first group was quite loud as it was a family group together. One night we cut in line at the Dock (actually the captain took us on the boat first) because we didn't want to wait for another half an hour for the next boat ride to the island, we would have been waiting a long time.....
In the early afternoon after our lunch beers (Chang) and mini sliders, Dad had to go into town to add more money to his SIM card. The taxi ride cost $80Bht for round trip.
Jess and Mom went kayaking even though they signed up for SUP. However, it was quite windy and th ocean was wavy, so they went kayaking.... Moms first time, and with our two Australian friends. It was long and tough, we didn't go very far, our guide took off and rarely looked back to see if we were still alive. Luckily, we didn't tip... none of us wanted to go for a swim because the ocean water here is quite dirty (low tide) and we all got bug bites from the ocean swimming.
Mom and Jess are relaxing meanwhile dad is stuck at the mall, waiting for the liquor stores to be open (closed between 2-5pm) we need wine as there is only so much water or beer a person can drink. For dinner we ate at our hotel, dad had Kung Pao chicken with rice, which was delicious, mom had a spicy green curry dish with rice noodles, and I had pork belly with kale, it was really good. For desert we had mango sticky rice as it was highly recommended by Derek.
Night view
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"Treat yourself Day"
Today was a very relaxing day at the spa..... The morning began with our usual early morning run/workout with breakfast and lattes. Because of the troubles with our room we each got a free one Hour massage, so we took advantage. The massages were wonderful, Mom and Jess had a couples massage together in a room, dad went later in the afternoon. They also had a promotion buy one treatment get another free, so Jess and Mom had a pedicure, they did a fabulous job. We booked phi phi island tour for tmrw- 3240 each with a private boat, roughly 130 per person Canadian. We also saw the largest "praying mantis" alive and he was so cute and green.
For dinner we are heading off the island into town for a special lookout dinner spot that was highly recommended by Tomi called khao Rang Breeze restaurant.
Pier from run
The restaurant above was on a look out point on top of a large hill with many other cafes and restaurants. Super cute spot.
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Mom and Dad went on an Phi Phi island all day tour!! While Jess stayed at the hotel and chilled at the hotel in the sun with the Australian girls!
They gave the tour a 4.5 star rating as the tour boat was less busy and they went to a few islands and had lunch at a very nice resort with a pool they got to swim in.
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We suntanned in the am, then Superman took us to Patong beach, roughly 50 min drive from Coconut island. What an experience that was!!
We walked around the beach and mall first, mall was very expensive for brand name clothes, similar prices to Calgary. However, we bought 3 tie sets for presents. Jess wanted to go to this brewer to taste some local brews. It was called Full Moon Brewery, but it was very expensive for beer- 220 bht for a beer, we also tried nachos, not very good.... however, the cheese here is quite good and tastes legit. We've been having wine, cheese, and fruit for happy hour each evening before dinner, which is clearly Mom's favorite part of the day after reading her book ALL day long.
Back to Patong Beach, it was a mini Las Vegas but dirtier... Jess didn't like it very much. There were gross 'massage parlor's' everywhere that were quite nasty and every two seconds we were aggressively approached to attend 'ping pong shows'. If you don't know what those are, urban dictionary it.
We left earlier then anticipated as it was quite the loud and obscene scene, not recommended with ones parents.
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After the chaos of Patong beach, we \240spent a day relaxing at the pool. The following pictures are from our AM walk.... we ate dinner with our Australian friends, KIm and Lauren. The day before, Kim who is a muscle machine of a woman, also a high school gym teacher, just finished her daily three hour workout and was heading to her villa when a bat fell out of tree, onto the ground right in front of her, startled with fear and confusion the bat scratched her leg! She had to get Superman to drive her to the hospital on the mainland, after she ate breakfast of course. She had to get a tetanus shot and rabies, she has to get 4 more when she is home during the next few weeks. My take away- don't go to the gym on holidays 😳
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We worked out in the am, ate breakfast in the blazing sun then started tanning by the pool for one last gorgeous day in the heat to complete our tans, it started off just fine and dandy, until it started pouring rain for a few hours, which cooled everyone down. Dad worked a bit while we read. Eventually we ordered a few snacks by the pool and continued sunbathing.... until the minuscule insect demons attacked Jess's legs and she hightailed it outta there. From her yeast infection to her heat rash to her many many many bites on her body, she is now paranoid and is wearing socks and lulu pants... she clearly needs a drink, or three....
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We began the morning running stairs at our hotel Ibis, turns out they DON'T have a fitness center like we all thought. We ended up walking the whole day as well, so roughly 17km, according to dad's Fitbit....
we are a 5 min walk to the ferry, which took us across the chaophraya river. We then rode the hop on hop off boat tour all day long, getting off at a variety of markets and tourist attractions. The river is full of boats, dead fish, plastic water bottles and garbage. It costed 200 bht per person, we used the tour company for two days, Boat4U. Needless to say we were exhausted from the crazy day we had, it was crazy hectic with people.
Flower Market with hundreds of flowers, vegetables and fruit, called Yod Pi Man Market
The river was full of other boats!
We visited a bunch of markets, it was scorching hot out, \240but a very cool and unique experience filled with smells, people, clothes, trinkets and food! We attempted to visit the temples at the Grand Palace, but we were told, ' were not at the beach' and we needed to change our clothes, shoulders covered and legs covered.... dad was NOT impressed.
Later that evening we took a free ferry to the Asiatique riverfront night market, which runs from 4:00-11:30 each night. Bangkoks modern fusion market.
The night market was really different then the other markets during the day, as it was more 'store' like, very spacious and more modern with restaurants and fast food joints like DQ....
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None of us could barely walk today! We only had 13000 steps today compared to our 28000 yesterday! Mix in the +35 degree weather, a recipe for heatstroke!
So we decided NOT to work out and Mom and Dad let me sleep In Until 8am today! Lucky me..... \240we put on our old lady dresses which we bought yesterday from one of GE markets and our first stop was the Grand Palace, it was only around 11am, and about triple the amount of people around. We got in today, however, to go inside the actual palace, we were suppose to pay 500 bht per person, we said no and walked around. We then went to Wat Arun, a palace, which was stunning with the gold, nature, buddua and whole experience. It was so hot today, (as usual) so we decided to hit up the fancy, smancy, 8-story mall called Iconsiam luxuary Shopping Mall. Basically everything was very expensive, same stores as Calgary, high end stores like Coach, Porsche, Micheal Kors, Versace and normal poor people stores like Victoria Secret, H & M and ToysRS.... Jess bought some clothes from H&M.... we had a very expensive latte and lunch. The Whole mall was like Vegas...
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Mom and Dad went for a walk, even though none of us can even get out of bed with our sore calves, Jess got to sleep in until 8am- Imagine that, lucky girl. The weather forecast called for rain and thundershowers in the afternoon, so we thought we would tan and sit by the pool in the morning. We left Ibis hotel around 1, and it took 40 min to drive 8km... traffic was nuts. We went to the Sea World Aquarium at the mall, imagine that. It was so expensive for what we saw, 50 dollars a person. It was interesting and cool to see some of the fish and coral reef that we would normally not have the opportunity to explore, very educational, dad hated it LOL jk
Side note- Mom and dad were extremely upset about not being able to buy liquor the past two days because of a Muslim Holiday.... complaints non stop, they might have a problem.
After the ocean tour we wondered around yet another expensive and busy mall... got a few treats to eat and drink. We then wondered around outside to see more of Bangkok, it is a very happenin place! From expensive cars, fancy clothes, and everything is expensive to shop at, more expensive then Calgary. We ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was good, except for the fact that Jess' chicken Burger wasn't fully cooked. After that we attempted to head home, had a sketchy experience with a taxi driver who didn't want to drive us, was trying to overcharge and acted very strange. So we hopped out of his taxi and quickly found another one, it took us over an hour to get back to our hotel.... apparently Bangkok is that busy 24/7.
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Leaving for Chiang Mai
Our tour guide Brent and Owen picked us up from the airport at Chiang Mai, took us to the mall for a quick snack while Owen had his Kumon math practice. We then went to Brent and Tawm's house and settled in. Their house is beautiful, with huge bay windows, open style kitchen, and tall ceilings, beautiful house but no central AC so only the rooms have AC, which makes the house quite hot. Tawm and Brent took us to their favorite sushi restaurant. It was really delicious and authentic.
After dinner we walked around a night market and bought some gifts for family members.
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Tour guide Owen rode his bike while we ran behind him. He took us to his grandparents little orchard and then we ran to his grandparents house.... he was tired by 4km.
After breakfast Brent took us to a beautiful Duisuthup temple up on a mountain with look out points.
esther the pup!
We took an afternoon seista and read, for dinner and a dance show at Khum Khantoke
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Wow, what an experience we had today! \240Tawm told us she would take us around for some adventures today as we decided to go bamboo rafting and sightseeing on a mountain. Well, we drove about and hour and a half to a bamboo rafting place which was unfortunately was Only operating half the route because the river is quite low due to the lack of rain lately. So we drove across town through yet another mountain which was also closed and only operates in the morning, we had to come back the next day.... Needless to say we spent a lot of time in the car today, however, we had some good chuckles and laughes, mostly at Tawm's expense. We saw the beautiful mountain side, lush forests, lots of elephants and more of the city and rural areas.
On the way back down the mountain we stopped an elephant sanctuary to ride the elephants, Otherwise Tawm owed us all Thai massages for our 1 star tour guide experience. Luckily for her, this place also had bamboo rafting! So we spent 45 minutes rafting down the murky brown river with elephants bathing and pooping 🐘 💩
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Today, we got up uber early and went for a jog, then went to church and saw Brent preach at his church, Tawm sang in the choir. Everything was in Thai, however, we had a translator during the sermon. After we went to a mall for lunch, then walked around for a bit. Later, we went to a local night Market in Ching Mai and bought a few gifts, it started raining and we cut the market short. We're currently watching the movie Wonder, Owen made us French fries and we had kabobs!
Owen eating mango sticky rice!
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