Photos!!

Finally some photos! I think i just spent almost 200 baht (roughly 6 dollars) using the internet trying to load up my pictures, and I wasn't even able to load all of them, so I picked some of the best ones. So here goes:

Michole and I at the Grand Palace in Bangkok. It was gorgeous.

More Grand Palace.

Some Buddhas.

At the Grand Palace.

More of the Grand Palace.

The Reclining Buddha. It's HUGE.

The feet of the Reclining Buddha. See the person to the right? Puts it into perspective a bit.

At a secluded beach on Koh Tao. There were huge rocks everywhere but it was really pretty.

More on that same beach. Those bungalows are where we hope to stay next time we come out here :)

I thought this was cool. It's on a beach in Koh Tao, and the rocks are massive. I thought it was neat to see how high the tide comes up. And also the balancing skills of that rock on top.

Koh Tao.

This was walking through a beautiful resort on Koh Tao.

Walking into the water!

Now that I know how to post photos, I'll probably be able to do it more. Koh Tao was absolutely beautiful. Michole went diving one morning and I went with her on the dive and went snorkeling. There were two sisters from Ireland with us (one snorkeled with me) and then a couple from Australia who have become our new best friends. We hung out with them all day. They've been traveling for 5 YEARS! I can't imagine. But Thailand is their last stop before they head home. Anyway, snorkeling was unbelievable...beautiful reefs and tons of fish that I've never seen before in my life! The extreme sunburn on the backs of my legs was definitely worth it. :) The dive instructors were a married couple from Brazil who are living on Koh Tao and they were amazing. They were so happy and positive and just radiated fun. They're like those people who always make a good time out of every situation, and they definitely love diving so they were super excited to take us all out.

Yesterday, we took took a huge catamaran from Koh Tao back to Koh Samui, which is where we're staying now. Our resort is RIGHT on the beach, and it's like one of those beaches that you see in postcards for exotic places. It's stunning. We can walk straight out on the beach from our little pool area. We have a bungalow that's really nice, and there are a lot of people our age staying here-mostly from Europe, but there are a few American girls too. We're hoping to make friends with some of them and go out tonight. Here are some photos of Koh Samui:

Laying on the beach at our hotel.

Paradise!

Looking down the beach the other way.

Oh AND...Michole and I climbed an 80 meter waterfall today!!! I don't know how many feet that is, but it was a lot. And it was steep. And we were climbing up roots and rocks and mud and it was awesome. I'm really proud of us. Here are some pictures of our huge accomplishment:

This was on our way up the waterfall. What a beautiful view.

There's the waterfall! It doesn't look as massive in this photo, but it was huge. And this was just the bottom...we climbed all the way to the top.

This is looking down close to the top.

Michole and I at the top! There was a little pool up there, so we went for a swim...and promptly got out when fish were nibbling on us. It felt weird. Although it was worth it considering we were DRENCHED in sweat.

Me with Bom. He showed us the way up to the top. There's no way we would have made it without him considering there was absolutely no path.

This was one of the parts that actually had a rope for you to hold on to. The majority of the way up was steeper than this and you just had to figure out how to not fall.

So pretty much I'm having the best time EVER. I've decided that the beaches are much more fun for me than the cities...surprise surprise. I'm not looking forward to going back to Bangkok tomorrow, but we just spend the night there and then we're off to Vietnam on the 26th! Oh and just in case you were wondering, my stomach feels fine and I've been eating plenty of pasta. As in spaghetti. Because there are Italian restaurants everywhere. Perfect!