....Ko Phi Phi continues

   

One of the main islands off of Ko Phi Phi was called "Monkey Island". For good reason as you can see.

 

      

Geez louise, people and their pictures....right after we arrived on our cute little longtail boat, the "remote" monkey island was flooded by a cruise ship full of asians, tourists and their cokes...poor little monkeys. They take what they can and if its coke, they probably flock to these camera'ed tourists to get their fix.

 

brady on a rope swing. notice the height. notice the range of movement.

sammi on the rope swing. notice the height. bummer. notice the range of movement. bummer. those pointed toesies? you bet.

i could go on and on because i have loads of pictures. and yes it is as pretty as they are! a beautiful place!!! i highly recommend traveling to the island of ko phi phi.

(we're not done yet thought young readers...i have only yet to show you part 1 of the thailand trip. part 2 is the jungle and elephants...stay tuned!)

travels in thailand.

Thailand is a country that us, Cliffords, have dreamed of visiting since we realized we enjoy trips:) So...once again, we were able to tag it onto a trip already being travelled by the mr. Brady needed to take a trip to China so I decided that I would go along!

It was a long trip and I was really camera happy so I'll try and keep the narrative to a small dose.

Because we were from America, (unlike 90% of the other thailand travelers) we were only able to stay for 2 weeks. If any of you have ever travelled outside of the US, you can attest that the ONLY bad thing about being an American is our minuscule amount of vacation time. (except if you are a nurse...its a pretty easy 'vacation' job) most of our friends we met were europeans or aussies where vacation time is 4 or 5 weeks!! lucky! anyway, since we only had 2 weeks, we had to see the whole country pretty quick. I am going to highlight the BEST photos of the 2 areas we enjoyed....KO PHI PHI and CHANG MAI.

KO PHI PHI. south thailand. island. beautiful. blue water. secluded....kinda of. mosquitos. monkeys.

    

      

Sweaty kids after a long boat ride to Long Beach on Ko Phi Phi "aka THE family side". 4 hour long boat right in a overly crowded "shuttle" boat. Capacity of 300--carrying probably a good 700 people. I think we were modern day pioneers coming to a new country, any longer and we would have seen rats and contracted scurvy. There was NO food and the toilets were overflowing. gross!!

      

People from different lands, kids crying, people with pale skin about to loose their breakfast, loud unknown launguages, no AC, all trying to gather around the 4 small openings to get some air. Me and my weak sauce American stomach included.

     

             

Yeah beautiful. ps. I have done NONONO editing to these landscape pictures...it is really that pretty...i know i still can't believe it!


A longtail boat can be rented for a mere $30.00 for 6 hours!! AND your own tour guide. one would just walk on the beach and find a barefooted thai boy. (I say boy because they were about 1 foot shorter and 50 lbs lighter than me....shuck...so to them I was probably a women) all of their names are conveniently Tuk. they speak very little english, but have great longtail boat driving skills.

Speaking of 'women'. On Ko Phi Phi we learned one of the things that thai people hold near and dear....they proudly claim their reigning title as THE BEST LADY BOYS in the WORLD. And boy are they proud...or girl ha ha (get it, its a joke)
our friend told us...
    "if you see a pretty girl, it is not a REAL girl. Thai girls are not naturally pretty, It a lady boy! He gets surgery to be pretty. yeah yeah you like."

We stayed in a little place called the Phi Phi Erewan Palms Resort.  It was so cute...upon arrival. We arrived to this! And then our own hotel lady boy to wash our feet and give us real juice drinks. Who can complain right?? well...I do have one complaint (or token of warning) concerning our little palms resort. Actually, it would be a complaint against all thai plumbing. or maybe it is a complaint against large and in charge americans?? Our American bowels just over power the sweet little thai bowels i guess. The toilets just don't quite have the same gush, swoosh that our american toilets have. and that could be a problem if you are two american plate-cleaners with rather weak stomachs. (AKA b and s clifford).

 

...going along with poor plumbing, i would like to add what great customer service thai people exhibit. The little elderly cleaning lady who cleaned every day refused to let us plunge our own toilet. every. time. I'll stop there. Take away of the last paragraph---if going to thailand, take your own plunger and eat like a small house mouse.

            

                  

                

           

   

               

          

About 5 min after arriving on our cute little island we saw the other visitors who had enjoyed the sun and disregarded the screen (you know those bright red vacationers who are burnt to a tomato chip crisp, yet continue to roast themselves under the sun.) We turned up our noses and said to each other, "oh look at those silly people....i can't believe they got burned! Haven't they ever heard of sunscreen?? maybe this is the first time they have seen the sun ha ha"

well, slap our hands and burn our backs because that next day, we became those lobsters. yep, forgot our sunscreen like we didn't know it existed. So the next couple of days we wore our shirts. Those americans, they never learn.

to be continued.....

the best 2 years...

a wonderful 2 years.

this is a little bit late--- but as a license plate once has said, "always late but worth the wait". 

for our 2nd anniversary brady and i went to seattle! brady had to go for work and so we made it a date weekend/ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION!!

**ADDED BONUS: home to Seattle Grace Hospital on grey's anatomy! yahoo! if only i needed to go to the hospital. i didn't.

have you ever wondered what it would look like walking up a steep sidewalk without the pull of gravity?

this is what it wold look like. at first a head tilt back, and then straight as a board. 

finished with a pose.

the highlight of our vacations---delish meals. And this was one of the best! 

if you didn't know, one of washington's greatest assests happens to be Mt Rainer! great! 

since it was only a 2 hour drive, we decided to take it!. after a 2 hour car ride, it turned out a little different than we had imagined.

just like at most famous places, one has to pay to go up. when it was our turn at the ticket window, the lady must have seen our shocked look concerning the ticket prices and she quickly said, "you can walk up for free if you would like. its 3 miles, or you can always walk down" i thought to myself, "wow, we could walk up mt rainer!" i nudged brady who said to me, "yeah, l say lets walk down."
... so we bought the 20 dollar gondola ticket. (pretty good for mt rainer if you ask me!)

on our way up the gondola...
brady, "oh its so green!" (super excited voice)
sammi, "i thought mt rainer was snowy...wow its different that what i imagined. I can't believe we're here!!! i'm very excited."
nice ladies sitting across from us, "oh you can see mt rainer at the top if you look to the right. its a great view."
sammi and brady, "wait....are you telling us this is not mt rainer?? We are taking the gondola up the side of mt rainer-right?"
nice ladies sitting across from us, "giggle giggle, laugh laugh, mt rainer is about 1 hour drive from here. this is crystal mountain."
sammi and brady, "oh"

there it is...clear over there...in the distance.

our hiking boots. yes the sperry's.

the Summit House Restaurant 

maybe the best food of the trip.

this is the quote of the trip found on the back of the menu for The Summit Grill:

"The Mountains will always be there, the trick s to make sure you are too." 

...ha ha

PIKE PLACE

 Happy Anniversary.