'Cause I've Had the Time of My Life and I Owe It All To You

Posted by Jess

6 May 2011

After arriving at our resort in Phuket (pronounced Poo-ket) on Saturday morning, we visited the tour desk to see what we could do with our sunny days in paradise. Sunday the 1^st was our first full day in Phuket, Thailand and also our 7^th Wedding Anniversary.

A quick shout-out to all the family and friends reading this that celebrated our big day with us back in 2004. And to those we’ve met along our journey since then, we’d be happy to do it all again so we can share it with you too!

We decided to book an adventure tour to I guess be as un-us-like as possible for our anniversary?! I’m not sure what got into us. Our guide and driver picked us up early on Sunday morning and told us that the other 4 people that were scheduled with us cancelled at the last minute and so it was just the two of us. We headed north off Phuket and onto the mainland province of Phang Nga. The drive took about an hour or so but it was fun again to see the small villages and fishing areas along the way. This is already going to be a long post so I’ll save our thoughts on life there for another post.

Our first stop of the day was elephant trekking. We were able to ride through the jungle on an elephant named Sanguan. She was a sweet girl who took good care of us. For the first part of the ride our mahout rode on her neck and guided her, but just a few minutes in, he got down and told us that if we wanted to one of us could sit up there and steer. (As if the elephant couldn’t do exactly what she wanted to do at any given moment!) We both declined and he walked ahead of us giving verbal commands to her to walk along. He took pictures of us too along our trek, but unfortunately there was condensation on the lens from the steamy jungle and so the pictures all have a big blurry spot on them! I’m glad we did the ride but I have to say that it wasn’t exciting and I felt like the mahout was a little mean to the elephant at first based on the tone in his voice. He didn't hurt her or anything, just didn't let her go at her own pace! He seemed to relax a bit a little bit into our walk, maybe once we gave him some indication that we were in no hurry and if she wanted to stop and take a drink in the stream, it was fine with us!

After elephant trekking we headed to the base camp of our tour company. We had some time before others joined us for the next group activity, so we headed up to the zip line on the property. The zip line was in a clearing over the river bed so it wasn't quite the jungle-zipping that we were expecting (although Jay did smack his feet on some tree branches - ha!) Jason went first and I went second. We haven't ziplined before so this was new for us. It wasn't nearly as fast as I thought it would be. It was a short trip down and I'm glad we did it, but nothing to write home about. Well, just a little to write home about since I'm putting it here!

Next up was white-water rafting. If you notice in the pictures above, there isn't a lot of white-water to be had around here! The rainy season is just starting in Thailand so at the end of the hot season there's not a lot of water just laying around. So how did we whitewater raft, you ask? The company has a few dams built along the river and when they want to send rafts out, they flood it! It was a bit of a weird journey because we had to stop at times and wait for the water levels to rise. \We went in a raft with 2 guides and a couple from Florida - she was even from Minneapolis! So strange especially since there were not a lot of Americans around on this whole trip. There were about 10 rafts that went out and people had varying degrees of success down the river. We did pretty well I think and no one fell out, which is good!

While we were waiting for the water at one point, a boat full of girls started screaming and jumping out of their raft. Apparently their guides thought it was funny to put a frog in the boat. Not just any frog - biggest frog I've ever seen. After doing a little research, I think it's actually a Giant Asiatic Toad. And they can be up to 10 inches tall. I'm sure this one was that big! Our guides threatened to throw it in our raft too but luckily changed their minds. Thank goodness.

The whole trip downriver took about 45 minutes or so and was pretty tame, which makes sense since it's artificially flooded. In rainy season, they can run the river 7-8 times a day since the water levels are much higher. We didn't take our camera down the river but here's a few pictures of another group going out. Our raft companions have some photos and I'm hopeful that they will mail them over, but since it's been a week now I'm not banking on it!

After rafting we took a truck back up to base camp and went with a smaller group to a local waterfall. The trip up was pretty steep and when we arrived at the park we just had a short hike up along the river to the falls. Everyone went into the pool at the bottom of the falls, but I was hesitant due to all the fish swimming there. I'm good with the ocean usually - there's a lot of room for everyone to move out of the way there but in this confined space there was no way these fish weren't touching me! Tone Pariwat Waterfall was beautiful but the water was cold and it was busy with groups in a small area. I mostly just sat on the rocks and took in the views. Here's a few photos of the area.

We headed back to base camp and Jason and I were served lunch. We had enough food for 6 of us! It was nice to just have lunch the two of us there and most of the larger group had cleared out so it was pretty quiet.

seafood soup, red snapper, rice, mixed veggies, fish cakes, chicken and Pepsi :)

dragon fruit for dessert. jay's trying to make it fly like a dragon.
yeah, I don't see it either.

After this late lunch we headed to our last adventure of the day - four-wheeling in the jungle. We were given a 5 minute description on how to drive the things, a helmet and some shin guards and we were off with our guides. Not even 10 minutes in and I almost ran into a tree. Let's just say that I've learned that me + fourwheeler=guaranteed injury. I almost ran over my own feet twice in 15 minutes. So I told the guides that I changed my mind and went back to base. Jay went off at about 10x the speed I could go and had a blast getting muddy and seeing the jungle, villages nearby and rubber plantations. He came back a muddy mess with a huge grin on his face. This was by far his favorite activity of the day and I'm glad I didn't go - he wouldn't have enjoyed it with me poking along in front of him. It rained while he was out so I sat back and listened to the rain and just relaxed. A good choice for both of us, I am sure of it!

happy, muddy jay

can you see where his shinguards were?

After getting Jason cleaned up we headed back to our hotel. We got back around 5pm, just in time for sunset. We had dinner at the hotel's restaurant on the beach, enjoyed the view and the calming sounds of the ocean, and toasted to 7 years worth of adventures and our hopes for 70 more together.