Thanksgiving In Phuket

On Thanksgiving day we went out and explored the island. We hired a taxi and picked out two temples and a waterfall to visit. The first temple was blocked by construction, so we continued on to Wat Phra Thong. It is not a popular tourist destination, but the locals go there a lot to worship. Locals go to this temple because of the legend surrounding the golden Buddha.

Basically the legend goes like this: A boy ties his buffalo to a stick protruding from the ground and dies. When the father fetches the buffalo and the boy he cleans off the stick and discovers it is the top of a Buddha's head, the most sacred part which is why the boy died. Later on people attempted to dig up and move the Buddha. After a lot of death, they were only able to uncover the head and shoulders of this Buddha. If you want to read more you can click here.


Elyse next to the buffalo boy.

After the temple we continued to the Bang Pae Falls. I had read that people with disabilities and the elderly would find it difficult to climb to this fall, so was a little skeptical about Elyse being able to go, but the taxi driver assured me it would be ok.

Well, the trek was a bit difficult for a 2 year old, but we made it.

After visiting the falls and the Gibbon Rehabilitation center which was a t the base of the falls, we got some lunch. We had asked our taxi driver to take us somewhere and he took us to a seafood restaurant.

To get to it we had to go walk across a bridge and then down to a floating platform where the restaurant was located. This was one of the views from our table.

The fish was very fresh and came right from the water.

After lunch, we fed our crumbs to the fish and then one of the waiters brought out a crab for Elyse to touch.

We then headed back to the hotel for naps and then we hit the water. Our hotel had at least 4 pools. Elyse was able to walk into this one. Here she is pouring water on Toby's head.

Then we hit the beach, or as Elyse called it: the sandbox. In this picture Toby and Elyse are watching the para-sailors.

Back to the pool (a different pool). It was at this time that Toby wished me a Happy Thanksgiving. Up until that point I had totally forgotten that it was Thanksgiving.

For our Thanksgiving dinner we walked along the beach and found a restaurant. We literally ate on the beach and watched the sun go down as we listened to the waves crash.

I had forgotten to take a picture of our meal before we ate it, but from our empty plates, you can tell we liked what we ate. I had shrimp, Toby and chicken curry, Elyse had chicken nuggets, and we all shared some chicken satay.