#Flowers! Are you looking for sending flowers to Surat? Finally

[thewanderlees]

Lamai Beach, Surat Thani Province, Thailand

Thursday, February 12, 2015

Yesterday was a lot of fun, overwhelming beauty, so much to see.

We hired a nanny to come to our house and look after Hailey. And as most of you know ,that was way more exciting to Hailey than climbing a mountain to see waterfalls! We arranged with the nanny that we would meet her on our front street under the McDonalds sign, as there are no street address here. In our communication Thai/English there was confusion. I went to wait for her under the sign and phoned her again from my cell . She said she was waiting for us at the McDonalds restaurant ,which us about a mile from the sign at the corner! So I told her I'd come there, and started jogging down the street. Thankfully along came Saksay on his scooter and picked me up. We got to the restaurant and we still couldn't find her. So I called again, she said she went to the sign!!!! I got Saksay on the phone he spoke Thai and told her to stay there, we were coming back again! Success! Back to the sign we went and found her, finally! Hailey loved her day with the nanny "Fon" and had a great time when we were gone.

We hired the owner of the house to give us a ride to the waterfalls. The wife said 300baht each way, the husband drove and charged us 500 each way. We are definitely learning we have to be more firm with these people when it comes to prices and negotiating. They'll up the price any chance they get, as common practice here. He was a good driver and quick to come get us when we were ready to leave the mountain though ,so we were happy about that.

It was SO much fun on the mountain at the waterfall site! It was very well maintained "Disney style" , just beautiful. The elephants were so fun to watch. Saksay bought a couple bunches of bananas for us to feed them. They offered rides as well of coarse, but we are going to do that another day. When we were leaving the mountain for the day, we happened to see an elephant get real mad , and was roaring fiercely to try and get the people off his back! The trainer was then hitting it with a thing that looked like a pick axe! It was obvious to us the elephant just wanted a break. If we go elephant riding it think I'll research it a bit as to where. As some places treat the elephants better than others. And I'm not interested in going for a ride on an overworked, overtired elephant any time soon!

We started climbing the paths to get to the waterfalls. The kids were so exited as the surroundings are breath taking. At one point Lettie excited started running ahead down the hill. Well....there happened to be a fork in the road at the bottom. On the left there was a sign that said waterfall 1, on the right no sign and another hill. Lettie was no where to be found when we came over the hill! There are two main waterfallI sites on the mountain.( Our group was going to waterfall 2 first) the rest of our group continued on to see if she went right, and I went looking on the left path. As I continued along the left path it came to the most rustic looking drawbridge. I thought there is no way Lettie would have continued on and crossed this bridge by herself. So I went back looking and calling her name,over the side of the mountain, thinking maybe when she was running she tripped and fell off the path down the mountain. Horrible nasty feeling. I hiked back up hills I had just climbed sweating profusely trying to find her . (It was likly a matter of 10 minutes, that seemed like half an hour). I go back to the fork in the road again where we last saw her and thankfully, there she is, saying "what's taking you guys so long?its so beautiful,come see, come see!" Ugh! So thankful to find her, and annoyed at her at the same time! I was exhausted. We continued on up the hill to the main waterfall #2 and found the rest of the group.

The views, lush vegetation, landscaping, flowers, pathways and rocks all combined was like a tropical paradise. I hardly wanted to keep climbing because I just wanted to stand and stare, mouth open wide in awe. Such a fun, fun, day. Some of us swam in the water at the bottom of the falls too. Another unbelievable, unforgettable, experience. Id love to go back there again.

Saksay has been taking the kids in turns for half day trips to different locations, touring the island. That same day, later on, Emma went with Saksay on his scooter for a trip to see the Big Buddah. They all come back so exited to tell us about their adventures with him and all of the neat stuff they did and saw. When the Madeline & Emma got home that evening they both put together absolutely excellent videos. Madeline's I was able to share on Facebook. Emma is 10 minutes long, so I'm trying to figure out how to download & send it out to share with everyone.

This morning, Saksay picked up Erik, and they went to a tour company and booked our next adventure day, for this Monday. We are going to do the Samui Island Tour, Angthing National Marine Park. It includes a boat tour, kayaking, snorkeling, sightseeing, breakfast and lunch buffets. The tour starts at 7am and gets back at 5pm, and Saksay negotiated us a great rate of $60 each (instead of $85). Looking forward to the adventures ahead!

There are tons of videos and photos from the day on Instagram , thailand_adventure_2015

All for now guys