We Made it to Thailand :-)

*Warning.  This is a picture heavy post... You can only imagine how many pictures I actually have on my phone.


We left for Krabi, Thailand early Sunday morning (Jan 13) via LP, Malaysia.  It was a rather semi-long, but uneventful travel day with a 5.5 layover.  Maeve is a great little traveler and has taken things as they come.   My only other huge trip I have to compare this one to is our trip to Ethiopia 3 years ago, and I'm not surprised that she's handling this a bit better since she's 3 years older, but it does make me very happy.  I know we have many more weeks to come, and I'm sure we will have our moments, but so far, so good.

I can't remember if this was sunrise, or sunset since we saw both, but regardless, we thought it was pretty.

Maeve is trying to be diligent about writing in her journal so that her classmates will know what she's doing.  Its hard to keep it up-to-date, we're finding out, as we seem to be so busy each day.

Here we are in our first songthaew ride to the passenger ferry.  Maeve wasn't so sure about her first night in Krabi Town, as she was a bit nervous walking the streets at night after a long day of travel, but was excited to see Koh Lanta.

Checking out the view on our 3 hour ferry ride

These two pics are out of order, but getting off the ferry and being shuttled into songthaews and tuktuks.  Maeve took it in stride, thankfully.

Herding the cattle off the boat...

Someone is very happy with the pool

And the world is right.  Our hotel is beside Majestic Bar, which claims to serve the best mojitos in Koh Lanta.  I'm not one to disagree with this claim.  I've been enjoying a mango mojito the last couple of nights.

I wish Maeve would learn to relax

Our little piece of the beach

We ventured to Old Town and had lunch on this pier

I had to order a Chang for lunch to ensure that I was, in fact, in Thailand

Souvenir "shopping", except for the shopping part.  We're carrying everything for the next couple of  months... so we just peruse the shops

Maeve is refusing to ride a moped.  She says they're unsafe and she will not get on one.  ha ha.  I mean, she's right, and at home I would never want her riding a motorcycle etc, but I was really wanting to rent one and have my international driver's license ready.  But, I won't force the rational child with sane reasoning to get on one, so we go via tuktuk instead :-)

Oh, here we are in Old Town again.  

We decided to check out the Kao Mai Kaeo Cave.  Maeve really had no idea what was in store, but like the champ that she is, she went for it.

Headlamps required.  Here we go.

It was a very fun cave experience.  Lots of climbing up, down , over and through things.

We were VERY sweaty, and very dirty coming out of the cave.

Our guide pointed out this friendly guy about 2/3 the way through the trip, making me check every hand hold from there on out.  omg.  

Some of the ladders were very steep and quite far down.  Go Maeve.  At the very end we saw hundreds of bats just hanging out and squeaking their way through their nap.

We did it.  Lots of fun.

Back to the beach.  Journaling via seaside.

Sunsets are fun while jumping in the ocean.

The next day we went on another adventure that included hiking around Ghost Island (Koh Phee above) and sea kayaking.

En route.  Maeve getting her first longtail boat ride.

The cave climbing the day before prepped her well for this climbing experience. 

I think we're looking out one of the eye holes here

Lots of places to explore

The guides were really helpful to ensure everyone survived.  Ha.

Family photo inside the head

Time to rappel down

But, because the pictures don't always post in order, here we are back at the other eye socket

Some spectacular views

Meditating Maeve

Maeve is a hanging out in the nose

Back to the boat for pineapple snacks, and a quick jump in the water before we kayak around.

"I know how to do this mom"...  

So fun to kayak around the rock islands and pull up to a beach for a picnic lunch.

If you look closely you can see all the monkeys sitting on the rocks.

I love the views in this area of the world.

Another family photo

Getting ready to pull out from lunch

We stopped in this fun cave to explore some more.

One of the highlights to our Koh Lanta experience has been meeting a really nice Italian family and Maeve has made friends with 8 year old, Maria.  Though Maria speaks just a little english, she's practicing with Maeve.  They played in the pool and on the beach for several hours yesterday.

Sunset swims in the pool too.

Maeve and Maria doing homework this morning.  Maeve requested that we stay at the hotel all day instead of venturing to the National Park I had planned.  It was a good idea as it was nice to have a day off from 'doing', and meeting new people from around the world is part of the plan for this trip.  Maeve and Maria literally played in the pool and beach all day long.  They are very sweet with each other.  There are no other North Americans staying at our hotel - I have sussed out French, Swedish, German, Chinese and now our new Italian friends.  Its been quite fun.

Multiplications while waiting for dinner... trying get our math in.  We could do better.   

Tomorrow we are on a 2 island/snorkeling boat excursion to Koh Ha and Koh Rok and then we head to Railay Beach on Saturday for 3 nights before heading north to Chiang Mai on Tuesday.