As my winter break comes to a close, I have lots of fond memories to look back on. Some of the best times were spent in Phuket, over the past week.

Saturday

On Saturday morning, we left Phrae at 5:30 in the morning, to make our flight out of Chiang Mai. This was a little difficult to wake up because we returned from Pattaya at midnight, and I still had to pack 😅. Luckily, I packed quickly, and was in bed by 1 AM. Marie, Brian, and I slept in the car the whole way. We were very excited to reunite with our other exchange student friends!

We arrived in Phuket around 2 PM, and we met up with another rotary district of exchange students that live in Southern Thailand. In total, there were 21 exchange students from around the world! We had representation from Taiwan, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Belgium, France, Canada, and America. We all became really great friends over the week! That night, we painted porcelain and ate dinner overlooking the Phuket sunset. (and look at my sunburn from Pattaya haha)

Sunday

This was one of my most favorite day!! We spent the day on a boat, exploring Phang Nga Bay. It was absolutely gorgeous, and we even got to see James Bond Island, which is featured in The Man with the Golden Gun. With the other exchange students, we had a dance and karaoke party while we hopped between islands. It was so fun to share songs from each others’ countries. We also kayaked inside a bat cave! It was a little scary, but amazing to see the bats. I also tried mate, which is a famous Argentinian tea, from my friend Feli. For dinner, we walked around a night market, and found a Japanese grill restaurant.

Monday

Today was a more relaxed day because it was raining the entire time. We spent the day at a mall, which was exciting for us all to see western stores again. There was lots of American restaurants, which made all of exchange students very excited. We all ran to Taco Bell, after missing tortillas for 3 months. Eating a Crunchwrap supreme and cinnamon twists was such a nice reminder of home. That night, we visited Carnival World, which was a fun park and Thai cultural show. I couldn’t take. photos of the show, but there were lots of floats that resembled elephants, dragons, and other important Thai symbols. After the show, all the exchange students traded pins and signed each others’ flags! Here’s my pin haul, along with some that I found at stores to represent Thailand.

Tuesday

We went out all day to visit the Phi Phi Islands, which are an hour away, by boat, from Phuket Island. These islands were absolutely gorgeous, and the water was even clearer than Phang Nga Bay. It almost looked fake, it was so pretty. We got to snorkel, swim, and walk around the islands!

At night time, we dressed up in all white so we could visit a Chinese Buddhist Temple to celebrate the Vegetarian Festival. This festival is a nine day event where participants stop eating meat in order to have physical and mental purity. We even did a Chinese fortune telling practice called Kai Chim. First, you shake a cup with 64 sticks, each with a different number, until only one stick falls out of the cup. Then, you have three tries to drop a wooden fruit, with one side up, one side down, to represent the ying yang. If you fail to do it, it’s not the correct number, so you restart the process. I got it on the first try!! The number correlates to a teaching from Confucius. Mine was a positive reading that says “I’m on the right path and that my hard work will soon pay off”.

Phuket was such an amazing place, and I’m so grateful I got to see it! It is 100% worth the hype that it gets worldwide. It’s the perfect mix of traditional Thai culture and gorgeous beaches. This was the most relaxing week before school started up again.

From the land of sunshine and smiles, ☀️💛

Emma Kate