the beach.

For Christmas break, Damaris and I went down south for the beach. We left on the 20th and came home on the 30th, but the trip really started a few days prior to the actual departure. Damaris and I knew that our bus left @ 7 for Bangkok, and were discussing when we would be able to get to the bus station (b/c we had to take public transportation). Well, I KNEW for sure that the buses to go downtown ran later than 5:30 ish, so I insisted that we leave 5:45 at the earliest. Around 6:15 when no buses had come, Damaris was about to get mad at me...and a mini-car pulls over and drops a lady off. Another woman from the car approaches us and tells us that they're teachers and asks us where we're going. We said the bus station, and she said she'd be happy to give us a ride. So Damaris, I and our huge backpacks smush in the backseat for our ride downtown. HUGE blessing!

It's an over-night bus, so we left at 7 pm and arrived in BKK around 6 am. Not a bad way to travel really. The seats are pretty big and recline way back. I always have trouble reclining though, there's just something about taking someone's personal space that I struggle with... Around 1 am I was glancing out my window and for about a 1/2 mile this truck had accidently been dropping boxes and the contents were all over the road. What were the contents? Straws. White straws all over the road...hahaha

We arrive in BKK and ride the city bus from the north bus terminal to the south...an hour and a half. Not bad for 18 baht. So we eventually make it to the south bus station, and decide that rather than stay the day in BKK, we'll go to Hua Hin - a beach about 3 hours away and spend the day there and then take an overnight bus down to our destination - Khao Lak. Hua Hin was a nice place, but very touristy.

We took an overnight bus from Hua Hin to Khao Lak - this is the beach.

arrive around 6 AM in Khao Lak walked around for a while, try to communicate where we want to go, get sent to the wrong place, walk a couple km back to where we started and then call Bens, an amazing Thai girl that works at the YWAM base. So, we get settled in our guest room that's right next to the base there that ministers to tsunami survivors. We spent a couple days there in Khao Lak...to be continued...these are beautiful designs made by crabs.