Day 3 on Koh Phangan--The Grand Tour

Because snorkeling and diving were out of the agenda, we found an island adventure tour that took us all around the island to see the best spots. First stop--an outdoor Thai boxing training arena. Diamond was the little man of the hour. He thought this place rocked. He was given boxing gloves and got his own personal trainer and that little dude went at it. And thing was--he had some serious skills.

Next was another hike through the jungle to the highest point on the island which had breathtaking views of the island and the coastline.

Near the top was a waterfall and a swimming hole. After a long sweaty hike in 95% humidity, a little dip in cold spring water was well needed.

The next stop was a Chinese Buddhist temple. We're well versed in Buddhist temples seeing as they're on every corner in this part of the world. Not, to knock their religion or anything, but it would be a lot like touring all the LDS chapels in Utah County. Seen one, you've seen them all. This one was impressive more for its setting up on the jungle mountain side.

One stop on the itinerary said "snorkel." We were so hopeful it would work out, but there was a dangerous current and the water had been so overly churned by the waves that the visibility was poor.

That didn't stop my children from attempting it anyway. When it failed, they built sand castles and searched for seashells. They were happy as clams. . . okay, maybe that was too much. (Besides who decided clams were happy?)

Lunch at a local home-cooking restaurant with homeade mango and pineapple ice cream for dessert! Yummy!

After lunch came the elepant trekking. It wasn't a super impressive trek, but it was dang cool to be on top of an elephant. I would definitely take an elephant ride over a camel ride any day. If only they had had elephants to hike Mt. Sinai when I visited Egypt and had pneumonia. Instead I had to ride a stinky camel. . . but I digress. . . riding elephants was fun for all of us, even if it only lasted about half an hour.

I love this picture of one elephant feeding another elephant: "Hey, you've got to try this jungle weed. It tastes like chicken."

Finally, we ended the day with a trip to the traditional herbal sauna next to the local Buddhist temple. In the front of this little building was a barrel of cold spring water with a small bucket. Before entering the sauna we dumped this water over our heads. There was a women's side and a men's side and the inside of the sauna had tile benches and were filled with thick steam that smelled of lavender and lemongrass. They used over forty herbs to boil in a large pot behind the building and pumped the steam into the tiny rooms. You were supposed to stay in the steam as long as you could and then come out to the barrel of spring water, drench yourself again and return to the steam room. We did this several times. Brian loved it. It was his favorite thing on the island and we return a couple days later for another visit.