Thailand fun with Matt and Nicole

From the couch of Allie.....

The way I see it, as long as I am still sharing about Thailand, it feels a little bit like I'm still there.  So towards the end of our trip we spent a few days travelling with Matt and Nicole. They are teachers in Laos and this is what they look like:

As you can see in this picture, they are clearly awesome.  This trip just confirmed that fact but here's the breakdown.  After flying to Bangkok, we boarded an overnight train to Trang Province.

The Bangkok train station reminds me of something from Harry Potter.  King's Cross Station?  sure.  Where's Voldemort?

 The seats fold out into a bed and a bunk comes down from the ceiling as well.

The video is slightly prophetic in that, I spent 5 miserable hours back and forth to the bathroom after eating some bad train food. Who would have suspected that the food on the train might not be extremely fresh and clean?  To be clear, the restrooom on the train is a whole in the floor.  At one point, I was mid-illness while at a trainstop and I could hear people right outside the 'bathroom' 'window' and I knew they could hear me.  I remember thinking, this is my most embarrassing moment in a long time.  Later that day, as I threw up off a dock, as our bus waited for me, and then in front of a convenience store, I realized how wrong I could be.  But fortunately, the rest of our time with Matt and Nicole was much more fun and much less pukey but my face still looked like this most of the time.

We went to the beach, ate wonderful food, and they convinced us to rent a motorbike.  I'm pretty sure if they had offered me some cigarettes and told me they were cool, I would have lit one up, they are that cool. Just kidding, peer pressure is bad.  Very, very, bad. 

Here are some more of our adventures:

The monkey attack! (I wish I could make this picture big enough so you could see the crazy monkey eyes, I felt like I was in the movie Congo, but with smaller primates)

Giant tree!  Again, thai people do not mess around with the whole hiking 'trail' thing.  This was a serious hike to get here.

To the Thai lighthouse!  This was an abandoned lighthouse at the end of Koh Lanta, you could climb all the way up to the top using 3 rusty ladders inside.  It was great.

Me and Nicole at the top.

We had a great time hanging out with them in Koh Lanta, then it was on to Ao Nang to meet up with Khanka and Olivia!!!