The Awesome Adventures of Hannah and Emma

I know you have all been waiting with bated breath for our next post, so fear not, we have not been abducted and sold into white slavery (win!).

We are currently in the midst of our GAP Adventures group tour that has already spawned some ridiculous stories not the least of which was when my complete lack of balance destroyed a hilltribe village's water supply (I wish I was joking.. So much for figure skaters having an innate sense of grace). But more on that in a week or so...

Before we met up with our group tour we spent about 12 glorious days living the good life on the tiny little island of Koh Samet where our daily activities consisted of going to the beach, eating chocolate croissants from the guesthouse bakery, making friends with local women who ran a pad thai stall and being on first name basis with the majority of the bartenders on the island (including one crazy character who gave us a haircut one afternoon at his beach side bar). It was a much appreciated break from our intense pace and despite waking up every morning with intentions to "explore the island", we never went further than 10km from the guesthouse.

Despite being really small, the island was full of hilarious characters like Muscle Man (a bartender/Mui Thai boxing instructor/Jenga master who was unwittingly trapped in a relationship with a psycho Canadian girl - Canada fail - despite the fact that he barely spoke English and she knew no Thai), Ridiculously Tanned Guy (a 50+ year old Aussie who was more tanned than any of the Thais on the island, got absolutely hammered every night, and one afternoon on the beach told us all about how he was fathered a half-Thai child on the island but had been recently dumped by the mother), Audi (a bartender/hairdresser/fiberglass worker? who was hilarious fun until he revealed his true colours), the Fire Show Guys (two guys who worked in the beach's nightly fire show - a spectacle that combined fire, 12 guys between the ages of 13 and 26, and at least one nearly fatal mistake a night - who tried to impress us with some really bad magic tricks), Dawson (an insanely drunk Thai man who was so puzzled and confused by my "You Thai, but you no Thai" looks that he followed me around all night until he was sent home) and so many more. Apart from the crazies we also made some new traveler friends who were a ton of fun, and in a crazy twist of fate ran into our Kiwi friend from Ha Long Bay on the beach.

Leaving the island was kind of bittersweet, but it was great to get to Bangkok for a change of pace and to indulge in some long awaited creature comforts. We finally went to McDonalds for the first time since Japan! :) And also went to the movies at the nicest, cheapest most futuristic cinema ever. We even went to Starbucks when they were having a promotional holiday party of some sort and ended up getting to sample 8 new beverages and 3 different desserts for free and I even won another dessert in a raffle!

All in all Thailand has been amazing so far and we can't wait to see what else it has to offer us! :)