From the Islands to the Mountains to the Big City: Winter Break 2021

Don't you just love it when your favorite people turned international teachers and travel bloggers just kind of forget about the whole blogging thing for 6 months? It's a great anticipation builder if you ask me. Let's fill you in on what you might have missed. Life has been a flurry of busy-ness since we last connected on here, when Nolan had just proposed and we were still lounging around our island in a beautiful summery daze. Since then, we have taught an entire semester of online school, with some amazing visits from some visitors along the way (thank you for coming Mom, Dad, Christina, Lexi, and Tim!).

We quickly fell into a routine here, working through the day, and trying to get out and explore at night. But, with all of the work of school and touring our visitors around our tropical island home,

we weren't able to get out and travel as much as we wanted to. We live in literal paradise, but we were eagerly looking forward to winter break to see some new areas of Thailand that we had been itching to get to. As the last day of school for the semester ended and we closed our laptops, we could not wait for the next two and a half weeks of travel bliss.

Koh Phangan

However, the first Saturday of our winter break did not end up being quite as relaxing as you would expect. Another island in the South of Thailand called Koh Phangan is very famous for their Full Moon Parties, and there was one on the first Saturday night of winter break. We knew we couldn't miss it. So, we hopped in a taxi that took us to a plane that took us to a taxi that took us to a ferry that took us to a taxi that took us to our hotel, just 4 hours before the party was set to start. We grabbed some food and threw on the brightest clothes we could find for a night to remember.

As we headed out onto the ever popular Haad Rin Beach, we knew that this night was going to be

different. The first sign of this was something we had heard about, but didn't expect to be true until we saw it with our own eyes. In the middle of a sea of drunk tourists, there were two Thai men up on pedestals and between them, they swung a giant jump rope made of fire. You read that right! They had covered a rope in gasoline and set it on fire so that drunk tourists could try and jump over a flaming rope. It was one of the most bizarre, and also entertaining, things we have seen yet in Thailand. At that moment, before any drinks were had, we made a pact to not jump rope over the fire (and we stuck to it). The next step was to cover our bodies in some festive glow in the dark paint, and we spent the rest of the night dancing, meeting new people, and watching people get hit with a fire rope. It was awesome.

Koh Samui

The next day we hopped on another ferry over to the island of Koh Samui. We had been patiently waiting to visit this island for months, as it was the only place we knew of in all of Thailand to have not one, but two disc golf courses! Nolan has been playing disc golf since high school, and he taught me to play throughout the pandemic, and after missing the sport for nine months, we were

so excited to be back out throwing discs. We rented a small house on airbnb for the five days we would be there, and spent each day driving between the two disc golf courses to get a round in. Besides the amazing time spent throwing plastic, our other major highlight was the motorbiking opportunities on the island. The island that we live on, Phuket, is the biggest island in Thailand with full sized roads, lanes, and traffic. Although Koh Samui is still the second biggest island, its population, level of tourism, and roads are much smaller. Our favorite adventures were the motorbike rides up over the middle of the island, on tiny, steep, curving roads through beautiful

trees and giant boulders. It was so peaceful to see the island from our tiny Honda Click, as we climbed and glided around the corners of the island. Our other major highlight was checking out a waterfall near one of the courses. It was a short hike to get to, but totally worth it as it was one of the most beautiful waterfalls we had ever seen. It had multiple levels and huge boulders that were just screaming to be climbed on.

Overall, our time on Samui was slow, peaceful, and relaxing, which was much needed after the semester of school and the recent Full Moon Party. We tried to visit the more hip-hoppity-happening parts of the island, but we realized that while Phuket had begun to come alive with a resurgence of tourists dollars, other areas of Thailand, including Samui, were still very closed down and quiet. This wasn't much of a problem for us, though, because we were about to head to a new city, one I had been dreaming about since long before moving to Thailand.

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is a smaller city up in the mountains in the North West of Thailand. The former capital of the ancient kingdom of Lanna, it is a sprawling city where the inner "Old Town" is surrounded by a square wall that was built more the 700 years ago. While the buildings inside have changed, the space has remained exactly the same.

In contrast to the stark history surrounding the wall, Chiang Mai is known for being a hip foodie and coffee heaven, with almost limitless speciality coffee shops, restaurants, and bars that could pass for being on a main street in San Francisco. And, on top of all of this history and excitement, it is one of the only places in Thailand to actually get "cold." That's right, after 9 months of daily temperatures ranging from 80-100 degrees Fahrenheit, it was time to broach the real winter of Chiang Mai, with morning temperatures dropping to a whopping 60 degrees. We might as well have been in the arctic. I'm just joking (mostly). We were fine (mostly).

My number one excitement with going to Chiang Mai was for a food known as Khao Soi. This soup

is native to Chiang Mai, and definitely one of the best things I've eaten since I have been in this country. It is a creamy coconut red curry soup, with egg noodles, stewed chicken, fried egg noodles on top, and some sides of lime, pickled vegetables, and some spicy pepper flakes that are not for the faint of heart. It is cozy, warming, spicy, and flavorful, and during my time in Chiang Mai I was dedicated to eating about as much as humanely possible, starting with night one. After getting settled in our apartment for the week, we met up with one of our favorite friends Christine, and headed to a night market on the Southern wall of the old city. After slurping down every last noodle of my first authentic Khao Soi, Christine and I decided to search out one of the hip bars for some specialty mixed drinks. I couldn't exactly tell you what we got because each cocktails had about ten ingredients, but I can tell you that some of the ingredients I remember included banana liqueur, a piece of cinnamon that was still on fire, and rum wine. It was a very memorable experience, and I was happy to have dipped my toes into the super hip-side of Chiang Mai.

The next morning, we woke up to the chilly morning fog of a Thailand Christmas. We spent time calling our families and dressing as festively as we could to celebrate our first Christmas away from home. Luckily, we have another two co-workers, Brock and Sam, who live just outside the city with their almost two year old daughter Marzie, and they invited us and Christine for a day of merriment. We ate cinnamon roles and eggs benedict for breakfast, spent the day playing board games, and had a full Christmas dinner that night, complete with turkey, stuffing, and gravy. Nolan and I felt so grateful for the little community that we had, even on vacation to a new city, and even though we missed our families and at home traditions, it was amazing to spend time with close friends and celebrate all that we had together.

We spent the rest of our time in Chiang Mai exploring the old city, driving on the gorgeous mountain roads, and eating as much Khao Soi as possible. We discovered a town that made authentic Thai umbrellas, a sprawling cave with giant Buddha's around every corner, and a hot spring that was so hot you could make hard boiled eggs in it.

Our favorite adventure we took in Chiang Mai was to a campsite in the mountains above the city with Brock, Sam, and little Marzie. On the way up to the campground, we stopped at an incredible disc golf course called Lanna Rock Disc Golf. We played an amazing round with Marzie as our caddy, and quickly fell in love with the beauty of disc golf in the mountains. After a quick lunch at

the cafe turned first hole, we made our way up to the campsite on a beautiful, curvy mountain road. Even after sweating through a round of disc golf, we quickly had to throw on our jackets because of the ever dropping temperature as we climbed elevation. After about an hour of serene driving, we made it to the campsite. This campsite was fully equipped with everything we would need, including tents, (very hard) sleeping mats, pillows, blankets, a kitchen, bathroom, and fire pit. We met some of Brock and Sam's friends up there who treated us to an authentic Thai hot pot and barbecue. We spent the rest of the night talking around the fire, before sleeping through the freezing cold nightly temperature of 60 degrees.

By the time our flight onto the next part of our adventure came around, we realized just how much we loved Chiang Mai, and could even see ourselves living there. It was a small city with a great expat community, we had close friends there, the Khao Soi was top notch, and there was an incredible disc golf course with an amazing community of local players. We would have highly considered moving there for the rest of the year, except that from February to late April the northern part of Thailand gets covered in smoke from the burning of crops on all of the farms, accurately named Smokey Season. We were sad that we had just cracked open this amazing place right before it would be nearly impossible to travel there, but we were so happy to have experienced this super-hip mountain town.

Bangkok

After spending our entire break relaxing and exploring new areas of Thailand, we were ready to end our adventure spending New Years Eve in Bangkok. If you all remember, Nolan and I spent the first three months of our time in Thailand living in Bangkok, but, while we were there, the city was going through lockdown after lockdown, as the vaccine had not yet made its way to Thailand. So, although we knew a lot of amazing restaurants, malls, and parks, we never truly had the full, bustling city experience. Plus, for this trip, we convinced some of our friends from Phuket to come and spend New Years with us and our friends that we had from when we lived in the city. What resulted was a crazy weekend of nonstop adventures starting with some motorbike taxis.

I am pretty sure that if you read back to my blog posts about living in Bangkok, I most likely raved about the public transportation system. The metro and skytrain are both extremely efficient and cheap, and it was our number one way to get around the city.

If we were trying to go somewhere that didn't connect to a metro line, then we would get a taxi and sit through the near-constant bumper to bumper traffic. But, there is one other form of public transportation in Bangkok that I never mentioned because I was convinced by our aforementioned friend Christine that they were death traps. However, for the first time, I was persuaded by a friend to try out a motorbike taxi, and I was instantly convinced that it was the best way to get around. Now, when I say best way, I don't exactly mean safest way since most of the taxis don't have extra helmets and the drivers are constantly weaving their way through traffic, but it was definitely fun, fast, and cheap.

So, we spent the weekend taking

motorbike taxis to all of the places we missed the first time around,

mainly rooftop bars and night markets. It was so great to experiences the city in an almost completely open way, and it was amazing to show our Phuket friends the city we called home for a few months, and to introduce them to the people and places we came to love in Bangkok.

After over two weeks of traveling around Thailand, we were ready to get back to our beautiful apartment and healthy routine in Phuket. As we saw new parts of the country, we found places we liked, like Koh Samui, and places we loved and could see ourselves living, like Chiang Mai. But, it still felt like coming home as the plane touched back down on to the island that we love.