Dia de los Adventuras

In true Wongske and Hanson style, we decided to continue the tradition of Dia De Los Adventuras: Thailand stylle. So, what does a day of adventure with this foursome include:

1) Rental Car. Very important for aiding the impulse of the day. You can't quite do that with a tour group. Although with a tour group when this happens it isn't quite so stressful:

2) Picking a direction to drive. Clockwise or counter clockwise. Always a big decision. This decision facilitates which activities you do first, which is important because the adventures usually last all day.

3) Stopping by random beaches to see them in all of their beauty.

4) New for Thailand: Waterfall Trekking. This is where things start to get interesting. We decide to take on the hike to see "Waterfall 2" (yes, that was literally its name). This was not a standard, tourist friendly nature hike. This was rock jumping, up-hill climbing, nature infested hiking.

I say nature infested because about a third of the way up we ran into this friendly little guy:

This is the biggest spider I have ever seen in my entire life, and hope it is the only spider this big I ever encounter. Needless to say, after seeing 'it', I began sweating...profusely. Through my layer of bug lotion, sun-tan lotion and dress. Top the panicky sweat on top of the 'jungle-fever-humidity' and as Katie says I was a "sweaty mess." 

 

It was worth the view, the story and experience. Plus, if we hadn't trekked through the jungle Ryan wouldn't have been able to do this:

 

 

After all of the hiking, and sweating, nothing tasted better than a Coca Cola from the bottle and this lost in translation sign:

 

5) There was a seaside temple that took forever to find. I don't want to completely blame it on the changeover from girls navigating to boys navigating...but we didn't have any issues when the maps were in the back...I'm just saying...

6) We also stopped to see the Grand Mother and Father rocks. I am going to go ahead and let the pictures to the explaining for how these rocks got their name...

Even the immature humor of these rocks couldn't keep our spirits up when we went back to our car and it wouldn't start. It was the breaking point, but everyone kept their cool and we figured it out. And we decided we really needed a break in some air conditioning.

7) Which led us to a Tesco Grocery Store. The first blast of cold air made us feel like new women immediately. Look at these smiles.

The smiles only got bigger when we got our hands on this for 25 Baht (less than $1):

8) Next came dinner, and as the boys settled in for some post-dinner drinks, Katie and I headed out to walk the beach and found out that on this particular beach you can walk out FOREVER because the water was so shallow. I literally felt like I could walk off the edge of the world. It was so dark, and starry and warm. It might just be one of my favorite things from this whole vacation. The pictures just don't do it justice:

 

After all of this everyone walked away with all of their appendages in tact, there were no poisenous bug bites, and almost none of us got a funky rash (nate...). Then as we were leaving for dinner from our little villa, I missed a set of stairs and BAM! Ouchee city. Good thing Nurse Wong was on the job...

 
 

It was definitely a full day, but also a fun and memorable day. 

P.S. I predict many nightmares of gigantic spiders in my future.