Back in Thailand!

I. Am. Exhausted.

The past two days have been a whirlwind of traveling, but hopefully I'll get to catch up on some rest now that we're back in Thailand.

Wow, I haven't updated this thing in forever. Ok...so Bali. We went to Ubud on the 9th and stayed there until the 12th and really had a good time. Ubud is more inland, so there wasn't a beach. It's a small town, really centered on one main road-lots of restaurants and shops. Oh and a monkey forest. Yes, I went to the monkey forest. And took roughly 8,000 pictures. Which hopefully I will post soon. Our hotel was really nice. It felt like we were really in the middle of a jungle or something. Again...photos soon. So we relaxed in Ubud, shopped a bit, and then did a full day tour of North Bali one day. We went to some Botanical Gardens (that we didn't care about. At all. And it was cold there), to a lake with floating temples, to one of the black sand beaches in the north, and to a natural hot springs. It was a good day...just long and tiring. One of the best things we did in Ubud, though, was find Ketut Liyer. If you haven't read the book "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert, then you're missing out. It's phenomenal. Basically, Liz Gilbert is a woman who recently went through a terrible divorce and is trying to get back on track to find herself and figure out what really makes her happy. In doing so, she travels to Italy, India, and Indonesia (each place for a few months at a time) to try and sort herself out. In Indonesia, she lives in Bali just outside of Ubud. She goes to spend time with this medicine man named Ketut Liyer. He's well known in Bali for what he does, and he's also a palm reader and makes magic paintings. Apparently, lots of women come to him if they're unable to find love, he paints them a magic painting, and soon after, they find what they're looking for! I know...sounds really weird, but after meeting him, he's totally legit. No worries...I didn't get a magic painting or anything. He told Michole and I that we're too young...love is coming! We won't have to wait long...(law school??) Meeting him was really amazing, though. In the book, he's such a HUGE influence on Liz Gilbert, and we felt like we got to know him through her writing, so actually finding him was great. He's like 90 years old or something...he can't remember when his birthday is, so each time you ask him his answer changes...usually depending on how he feels each day. If it's a really good day, he'll say he's 65. If he feels tired, he'll throw out an older age. He was 80 when we went to see him. He read each of our palms. In addition...he checked on our health through his own medicine man ways. Apparently we're both really healthy. Interestingly, he told each of us, without knowing our plans or our history, that we're on a similar path to success (law school), and that we're both incredibly smart, bright people (due to the fact that I had a star on my forehead and back...don't know where he found that...and Michole had a moon). Oh and Mom and Dad...apparently you'll have two grandchildren one day. Before I'm 35, he says. (I better get on it then, huh!!) He said each of us would be incredibly successful, satisfied, and happy. Hopefully he got that right.

So meeting Ketut was really a treat. We enjoyed that. We left Ubud on the 12th really early in the morning...and thus began the reason why I'm exhausted. We flew out at 8:00 in the morning to Kuala Lumpur. Got there around 11:30 and took a bus to the train station where we sat around until 8:45 that night to get on our train. Long day. Not to mention, we had to keep moving all of our crap around because multiple people with horrid hygiene sat next to us at different stages during the day. Couldn't handle it, so kept moving around. It was awful. But, there was a McDonald's, so it really wasn't too bad. The train ride to Hat Yai, Thailand was about 15 hours...but we were in a sleeper car, so we just slept the whole time. It wasn't bad at all. We got into Thailand around 1:00 yesterday afternoon and took a minibus to Krabi, which is a town kind of near Phuket. That took about 5 hours. Our final destination was Railay Beach which you can only get to by long tail boat, but apparently the last boats leave at 6:00 pm every day so we missed that. We took a cab to Ao Nang, just about fifteen minutes from Krabi, and spent the night there. It's a shorter boat ride from there to Railay so we figured that was the best option. I don't think I've ever felt more disgusting in my life than I did when we finally got into the hotel in Ao Nang last night. Not only had I not showered but I'd had nowhere to brush my teeth. I really feel sorry for the people who sat next to us on the minibus for five hours. Sick. So pretty much we each cleaned ourselves last night and then passed out.

We slept in this morning, and then took the long tail boat to Railay beach. We just checked into our hotel here, and it's really beautiful. Railay is really small, and it's exactly as you would picture Thailand. The stock photo that's on the front page of my blog looks exactly like this beach. It's a white sand beach with blue water surrounded by cliffs. Amazing. We're gonna go lay on the beach the rest of the day. And we're here for four nights, so hopefully we'll get some good relaxing in. On the 18th, we fly north to Chiang Mai, and will be there for four nights. On the 22nd, back to Bangkok (probably by train), spend one night, then wake up early early in the morning for our 8:00 am flight back home!!! It's been quite the unbelievable journey, but I'm definitely ready for home. Lots of memories to take back with me, though!

Again, I'll try to get photos up soon. These computers look more promising than the ones in Bali. We'll see. Hope all is well! And see you all soon!