bucket list

Alright, so I've managed to check off three things from my bucket list since I've been in S.E. Asia. 

28. Get a traditional Thai tattoo done with a bamboo needle. 

 

It had to be done. How could I spend over a month in Thailand and not get a traditional tattoo. Since I knew that I was definitely going to get this done my original idea was to get the word "smile" tattooed on my forearm. Thailand is known as the land of smiles so it seemed pretty fitting. I told Elena about the idea and she really liked it as well so we figured we would get matching one, maybe a bit cheesy but me and that girl have been though a lot so it seemed absolutely fitting. Elena, Alexa and I were sitting at lunch in Koh Phi Phi when me and Elena decided that we had to get the tattoos right then, spur of the moment or else we would back out. So, idea in mind we went to a tattoo shop and told them what we wanted. Sadly things didn't go quite as planned. Before leaving Toronto we looked up smile on google translations (yes, I know that's not a valid source but we just wanted a general idea of what it might look like) and what google told us was quite different then what the Thai symbol for smile actually was. We assumed it was going to be a longer word but in reality it was just a small symbol which would have looked silly in the spots that we both wanted, on our arms. So we told the tattoo artists we would be back and we went on to wander around all of Koh Phi Phi trying to think of other possibilities for this tattoo that we were both so set on. We tried to think of other phrases but we just couldn't shake "smile" from our minds. Alexa suggested that we could pick another word or two to add on to it to make it longer, maybe some words that describe us and mine and Elena's friendship. We walked and talked and brainstormed a bunch of possible words. Finally it clicked: smile, dream, live. These words seemed to be most fitting. Always stay smiling, we always dream about the things we want to do in our lives and we are definitely well on our way of living our lives the way we want. Idea in mind we ran back to the tattoo shop. Elena started to get nervous so we bought her some Bacardi Breezers to give her a little liquid  courage and I offered to go first. Bamboo tattoos hurt so much less than tattoos done with a machine. You only feel the pain when the needle is in you and its honestly just a split second feeling. The fact that they can be so precise with just a few needles is incredibly impressive and I watched the entire time the artist was doing it. So...one thing more checked off! Oh, and I might just be planning on getting another one in a couple days when I make my way back to Thailand, this time exploring Chang Mai in Northern Thailand.   

38. Survive a Full Moon Party in Thailand.

What could I possibly say about Full Moon. Our night started around 9pm when we all gathered in our neon gear that we had spent the previous 3 days stocking up on. The neon paint was brought out and the two Free and Easy groups, a total of about 50 Canadians, got together and we all painted each other up and danced in anticipation of a the long and crazy night ahead of us. By midnight we were all ready and anxious to get the party started. We loaded up in boats from our beach, Haad Yuan, and made our way to Haad Rin when the party was happening. As we turned around the rocks all you could see was flashing lights, a sea of moving bodies and you could hear the bass bumping loud. Imagine thousands of people, dancing, partying, drinking buckets like they're water, and don't forget about the ridiculous amounts of neon clothing and paint. The photo above is of Briana and me all decked out. I didn't even end up drinking that much because the energy of all the people around just seemed to keep everyone going, alcohol or no alcohol. Time went by ridiculously fast too. I remember heading to the washroom and when I came back a few minutes later the sun was rising and it was light out. The fact that we all survived and managed to stay awake to see the sunrise was reason enough to celebrate. I think me and Elena headed back to our hotel around 8:30am. As soon as we got back we both just jumped into the shower in our bathing suits and tried to rinse off all the neon paint (it actually took me 3 days to get every single last bit off of me!) and hung out in our hammocks until about noon, which is when I finally decided to go to sleep since Elena had passed out much earlier. So that was that, 12 hours of nonstop dancing and partying. We did it, we survived Full Moon, and I'm so ready to do it all over again.

51. Go skinny dipping in the ocean. 

Well this picture will have to do because there's absolutely no way an actual skinny dipping picture could be posted, nor do they even exist because lets face it, who really wants that kind of drunken fun documented but this is a photo from the location when the first skinny dipping session happened/ The first skinny dipping occasion happened on Paradise Island in Indonesia close to Pangandaran. Our group of 23 had an entire island to ourselves to camp out on and party on. We had a pretty large supply of alcohol, from big Bingtangs, 26's of lots of different liqours from gin, to vodka, to Tandaway (a rum from the Philippines). Needless to say, we were all ready to party. It also happened to be the day before Briana's birthday so we designated the night to her birthday celebrations. And what better way to celebrate a birthday than in your birthday suit. Drunk off of a huge mix of just about every alcohol that we had on the island five of us decided to do it. Not going to lie, my memory is pretty fuzzy when it comes to this part but we all did it the proper way, stripped down on shore and ran in. I do have to say though, pretty liberating and obviously really hilarious considering the state we all were in.

The second skinny dipping occasion happened in Koh Ang Thong with my 40 day Thailand group. Again, it was 23 of us on our own island, with just a few locals around. We started the night with a Pants off Dance off party because, guess what, it was mine and Elena's birthday party! Sadly our party got shut down because our 90's song sing alongs got a little loud and out of hand so we moved our party down to the beach, set up a small bon fire made up of candles and continued the partying and dancing. Koh Ang Thong had the beauty of having phosphorescence in the water. Think of the underwater make out scene from The Beach with Leo DiCaprio....the little algae that light up when they're disturbed in the water...yeah, those are phosphorescence. Me, Alexa and Elena got in the water, got naked and just moved around, making it light up. It's not at all what I imagined it to be. They're so bright, it's actually like a thousand tiny little lights underwater. Again, birthdays are meant to be spent in your birthday suit so I think we definitely accomplished that.

This wasn't on my list of things to do but it's definitely worth mentioning. I officially have my Open Water Scuba Certification. I got it done with I was in the Gili Islands. We had an awesome little scuba team, with tones of  laughs and an amazing instructor. I'm going to miss diving so much once I get back home!

The picture quality isn't that great seeing as I had to take them all from facebook but they will have to do for now! So happy August 1st....16 days till I'm home. Oh my.