Laem Sing Beach!

Yesterday I had my first trip to the beach! I've seen a lot of beaches from the motorbike, but this was my first chance to actually walk on the sand and swim in the water. The beaches here are just as stunning as advertised! They're so beautiful I don't think my photos will do them justice...but that's not going to stop me from posting way too many photos of them anyway haha. Maybe it will convince some of you to come visit! ;)

So yesterday was a public holiday. Thailand is a monarchy and their king is known as Rama (side note: the King in Thailand does actually have power, rather than being more of a symbol like the Queen of England). The current King is Rama IX. Yesterday was Rama V's birthday, and this was a public holiday. I'm now wondering if there are 8 more public holidays solely from past King's birthdays...? I hope so because a public holiday means Matt and his teacher friends are off---which means beach time!!

After cleaning up from our small party on Tuesday night (since they had Wednesday off, Matt's teacher friends came over and drank with us--they are wonderful!) we headed to the beach. Matt's favorite beach is Laem Sing. Not only is it truly beautiful, but thanks to the 150+ stairs you have to walk down to get there... it is also more secluded!

Now that Matt is getting more proficient at Thai, he's able to get us local discounts. For 150 Baht ($5) we rented two chairs right on the beach, with an umbrella and everything! I let Matt do all the talking here haha.

The beach was amazing. It was CRAZY hot though. I had to get in the water at least every 20 minutes to survive the heat. It's hot here by itself, but considering I'm used to Breckenridge, CO temperatures (it should be noted that it's already been snowing there) I'm an especially big wimp with the heat here. The water was the clearest, brightest blue I've ever seen. It was intensely salty though! I mentioned that to Matt and he goes, "You didn't drink it did you?!" I said "Matt, why would I ever drink ocean water?! That's a universal no.." Hahaha

The Thais that work there have pet Gibbon monkeys. It was amazing to see them up close. Their hands are SO human-like! Little fingernails and all. If you give them your finger they will wrap their hand around it, much like a newborn baby. They'll also jump up and climb on you. When I took this photo...

he jumped right up into my arms, took my iPhone and tried to eat it. Haha. When he couldn't have my phone, he went for the hair. His name is Johnny. As cute as he is, and as cool as it was to see them up close (there was another called "Jim" too), it's actually very sad. They're far too intelligent to be chained up like this. I just learned from my friend Hayley that Thailand has a massive illegal pet problem where gibbons like this one are taken as babies after their mothers are shot, and then sold on the black market for up to 500 US :( I wish I could've set Jim and Johnny free.