Archive for the 'Thailand' Category
Getting to Koh Phi Phi was a relatively painless but long journey involving several buses, two boats, and an overnight stop. Krabi Town, where I made my stopover, is a sleepy little place used mostly by tourists as a stopover for a number of beach areas and islands in the immediate vicinity. I didn’t get a chance to do much more than eat, sleep, and have a shower. Early the next morning I got on a bus which took me to the ferry to Koh Phi Phi, the island I’d heard so many good things about.
On the boat who should I run into again but Marcelo and Johnny, as well as a Dutch guy they had met, Yves. They’d just made a similar journey to mine from Koh Tao, but instead of a nice hotel bed for the night had been crammed into an overnight ferry on the other side of the peninsula. When we arrived on Phi Phi, we found a guest house with 4 single open rooms for us all, at much cheaper than I think any of us were expecting, and settled in. In other words, we went straight to the beach.
I spent just shy of a week on Koh Phi Phi, and did hardly anything. The whole time is a bit of a blur looking back on it, not because I was drunk the whole time or anything (though there were a few late nights), but more because, with the exception of two days, pretty much all I did was lay on the beach and swim in the crystal clear water. There are no cars and only a couple motorbikes on the whole island, and the relaxed atmosphere of the small town that exists solely to cater to tourists was the perfect vacation from my travels.
Koh Phi Phi consists really of two islands, Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Leh. The big island, Phi Phi Don, is where all the accommodation is and most of the easily accessible beaches, while Phi Phi Leh is mostly a collection of huge limestone rocks with a few pristine beaches tucked into various spots, including the one made famous by the move The Beach, Maya Bay. I spent the second day doing a couple dives off of Phi Phi Leh, which were absolutely beautiful and probably the best spots I’ve seen yet. I had hoped to do another day of diving at a wreck somewhat west of the island, but they needed at least five interested divers to take a boat out, and even when they asked at all the shops around the island to try and combine a trip, the most we could get together on any day was three. It just wasn’t meant to be.
After diving, the next few days saw me falling into a small routine of checking if there was a boat going to the wreck, eating, laying on the beach, and enjoying the local nightlife scene. The bars were pretty fun because there are only about 4-5 on the island, and the crowd of young people follow a fairly set pattern visiting them. The place to start is the Reggae Bar, where drunk westerners get free drinks for jumping into a boxing ring and beating each other up. While I didn’t participate, it was fun to see how poorly people fought after a couple buckets of booze. Next up was the Apache Bar, a huge dance club with several levels going up the bar like huge steps. One night they had a Ladyboy Cabaret show there, hilarious and disturbing at the same time. Finally around 2 am all the bars on the island shut except one, the Hippy Bar, where everyone meets at the end of the night to party on the beach until the sun comes up. Needless to say after nights like those, sleeping on the beach was about all I (and everyone else) could manage the next day.
Marcelo left two days before I did to make his way home via Bangkok, and the following day Johnny and Yves headed off to another island, Koh Lanta. Since I was alone for my final day I decided to take it easy the night before and do a longboat tour of the island. We went around to several beaches and did some snorkeling and more laying around in the sun, including a stop at Maya Bay, made famous in the move “The Beach”. We finally called it a day when a sudden massive downpour made laying on the sand not the most inviting prospect.
The next day I took a boat back to Krabi, where I would catch a flight to Singapore and meet up with Juliana to see Malaysia together for a couple weeks.
From Chiang Mai I was determined to get to Koh Tao in as little time as possible. I even hoped I could avoid a night in Bangkok, but that wasn’t in the cards. The bus journey was longer than expected and didn’t end at the centralized bus station I thought it would, so by the time I got into town it was well into the evening. I got a bed for the night at the same guest house I had stayed in and enjoyed my first time through. The next day I caught an afternoon bus down to Chumphon, and then an overnight ferry to Koh Tao.
The overnight boat was a new experience in travel, basically a cargo ship with a reed mat laid out on the top deck and a long, rubber pillow for everyone to share. A flimsy tarp was our only protection from the elements. Needless to say, sleeping on this boat (which left at about 11:00pm) was restless at best.
Arriving at about 5:00 am, Koh Tao was still asleep. Fortunately there were a couple taxis waiting at the docks and one took me to the dive resort at which I had booked accommodation and a dive course. Wanting to have all the options of diving in Southeast Asia available to me, I had come to Koh Tao to do my Advance Open Water certification which would allow me the full range of depths at recreational dive sites. However, no one was around except for a little old Thai man cleaning in the beach-front restaurant and about 30 dogs sleeping on every chair and table. He beckoned me to a free couch, and made a motion like I should get some sleep. I was happy to comply.
Around 7:30 I was awakened by the sounds of activity around me, as the various workers had begun their day and were preparing the restaurant and facilities for the day. They must have been used to people arriving as I did, because they seemed unsurprised to see me and were quick to smile when I caught their eyes. Eventually the reception opened and they put me in a course starting that day. I wasn’t sure about diving after my lack of sleep, but they explained that the Full Moon Party on Koh Pha Ngan had just happened, and there would be a massive influx of people the next day. If I started a class today there would be three of us. Tomorrow there could be a dozen or more. I opted for today.
I settled in my room, changed my clothes, had some breakfast, and met up with my dive group. My instructor was a friendly Australian guy who’d been diving and living on Koh Tao for a long time, and my fellow students were an Israeli guy about my age and a 17 year old Dutch kid who’d just finished his Open Water the previous day. Our morning was a relaxed introduction to the new types of dives we’d be doing that day, a deep dive and a computer-assisted multi-level dive. Both dives would be taking place at what is said to be the best spot on Koh Tao, Chumphon Pinnacle, which is known for the many shark sightings. I’d never seen a real shark in the wild before, so I was very excited.
We took the boat out to the spot, got ready, and got in the water. Our first dive was the deep dive, where you go down to 30 meters/100 feet to experience the depth for the first time. No sooner had we touched down on the sand at 30 meters when a 6 foot-long reef shark came swimming along withing about 5 feet of us to see what we were doing. Reef sharks are known as some of the most docile towards humans, and attacks are rare if ever, but it was still quite a thrill. After a few minutes at the bottom we had a swim around the site, and saw quite a few more sharks as well as many other fish, eels, and colorful corals.
The next dive was similar, though this time we used a dive computer to calculate exactly how long we could stay at each depth, and vary between three different ones. Again we saw a lot of sharks and beautiful fish, and I could see why it was considered the best site around. Much better than the spots I’d been in Vietnam, though to be fair I was busy doing skills and tests underwater when I was there.
After a day of diving and so little sleep, I could barely keep my eyes open by the end of the day. I had a quick dinner with my course mates, and went to bed very early. We had another full day ahead of us, and had to be in the classroom again in the early morning.
Our next class was even easier and shorter, and we went over the dives for the day. The first would be underwater navigation, followed by fish identification, and finally a night dive. A short boat trip later and we were in the water ready to do the first dive, underwater navigation.
I was partnered up with the Israeli guy, and we had to take turns navigating a square with a compass while the other counted kick cycles to determine the distance on each side. The second half of the dive had us following a map of the dive site we had drawn on our slate, and using a compass and recognition of the ocean floor, we were to make our way around the site and return to the boat when our air was at a certain level. Now I still don’t know how we did it, as the two of us spent half the time we were down there arguing about which direction to go, but right when our air got to the safety limit we ended up next to the boat. Of course we pretended like it was on purpose.
Next up was the fish identification dive. Given a slate with pictures of all the different fish in the area and a list of fish to find, we set off to check off as many as possible. Again we were on our own and had to navigate the site as well, a different one than our previous dive. We managed to check off all but one of our list (stupid eels…), and again navigate our way back to the boat. This time I felt like it was only about half luck and half skill, so we were doing better.
The boat then took us back to shore for a bit to rest before the night dive later. We had dinner and discussed what the plan was. Diving at night isn’t nearly as hard as it sounds like it might be, mostly because as a rule you don’t dive at night in a site you’ve never been to before, and usually you go with a guide who knows the site quite well. Also, the flashlight you use is blindingly bright, and as the water is usually even clearer at night, visibility is actually quite good.
We swam around observing how things were different at night, watching the fish sleeping amongst the corals. We managed to find a barracuda as well, and followed the advice our instructor had given before we got in the water: set off in pursuit, shining our lights just in front of it. Every time the light hit another fish, the barracuda shot forward and engulfed it. Unfortunately, it eventually swam away from us and we were left again with the peaceful reef. Finally we emerged from the dark depths, all of us now certified as Advanced divers. I had a couple celebratory beers with the Israeli guy and his girlfriend, and then went to bed again exhausted. It’s amazing how much diving takes out of you, especially 3 dives in one day.
I had hoped to get in a couple fun dives the next day, but the massive influx of Koh Pha Ngan partiers had filled up all the boats, so I was left with the option of sun bathing on the beach, which I do have to say wasn’t entirely a bad thing. About halfway through the day I heard someone calling my name and looked up to see Marcelo, the Portuguese guy from the Gibbon Experience, walking up to me with a huge English guy named Johnny. They’d met up at the Full Moon Party and had come to Koh Tao to continue to party and enjoy the islands. We caught up for a bit, and then they took off, as Johnny had come to Thailand to train in Thai boxing, and there was supposedly a good gym on the island. We said we’d try and meet up later, as the area we were in isn’t that big, but it wasn’t in the cards.
The next day I set off on a boat for Koh Pha Ngan to see what all the fuss was about. Upon arriving in Haad Rinn, the beach of the famous Full Moon Party, I felt like I’d entered a ghost town. The small village had obviously been designed to accommodate thousands of party-goers, and with only a few hundred left, there was a lot of open space. Still, there were small parties on the beach every night, and during the day laying out on the north part of Sunrise Beach in some of the finest, whitest sand I’d yet seen was a great way to spend a couple days.
On my last day I did a longtail boat trip to some of the other beaches on the island, though bad weather and strong winds prevented us from going all the way around as was the original plan. Even worse, my supposedly “waterproof” camera from Olympus, that had until now been doing great in shallow water, decided to fail under only a foot or two of water while snorkeling. I’m going to have to buy a new camera somewhere now, but I’ll probably wait until Singapore in a little over a week.
I’d been more or less alone apart from some people I’d briefly meet on the beach or at a bar until the last night, when randomly I ran into a bunch of the people I’d been partying with in northern Laos, including Amelia, Ben & Nic, and Shane. We had one more night of fun together, at a bar where everyone was pretending like it was the full moon again and painting each other up with blacklight paint and dancing to loud techno music. I didn’t stay out too late that night, as the next morning I had a long combination boat and buses journey to the islands on the other side of the peninsula, specifically Koh Phi Phi.
Photos (before the camera broke)
Thai Islands, Southern Thailand
The mini-bus from Chiang Kong to Chiang Mai was a bit cramped, but it was a short journey, and I ended up sharing it again with the Canadian girl from the Gibbon Experience Kelly. She’d made friends with a couple Japanese guys in Houayxai the night before who came with us as well, and the group of us passed the time fairly quickly.
We arrived in Chiang Mai and unfortunately I lost track of the group of them, as I had booked a hostel on the other side of town from where they were staying. It’s not a massive city, and there’s a main center part where most people hang out, so I had hopped I’d run into them again, but alas I did not.
The hostel I stayed in, however, was superb and the guy running it came and picked me up in his car near where the bus had dropped me off. He told me he was taking a group of people to a local Thai barbecue that night and I was welcome to come along, and was happy to offer advice about my plans for the next few days. We got to the hostel and I was amazed: it was literally a little gated community of houses that looked like American suburbia. One of the houses had been turned into a hostel called “Spicy Thai Backpackers”. The inside was and inviting home, one room full of dorm beds, and upstairs the private bedrooms and a small girl’s dorm.
A group of us set off for the barbecue in the hostel’s Sangthaw, our host Pong in the driver’s seat. We arrived to a massive concrete-floored tent, full of plastic picnic tables and chairs, and in the middle, a buffet of uncooked meats and vegetables. Our table had about 20 people, and we were given 4 grills to cook on, essentially the same steamboat setup I’d seen before in Cambodia and Laos. We all went over to the food and loaded up our plates with unknown meats and vegetables we thought we recognized, and brought them back to the table. It was a great way to meet a bunch of people, and we all had plenty to eat (though not all of it tasting like what we thought it would).
When we got back, Pong said he was going to a bar later to meet some friends, and if anyone wanted to come with they were welcome. I joined a smaller group from dinner and we all piled into his car, and drove to the center of town where all the bars were. The bar we arrived in was packed full of people and had 2 stages with Thai bands covering all sorts of western pop songs. I got a table with the other people from the hostel and we ordered up rounds of beers, laughing at the slightly distorted renditions of a random mix of music. Eventually the night came to a close and we all headed back to the hostel, not too late.
I woke the next morning and had an email from Kirsten and Eilidh, they had arrived in Chiang Mai the same day as me and we arranged a time to meet up that afternoon. I spent the morning walking around the city, doing a little shopping to replace some clothes that had become dirty and worn out (the Gibbon Experience put an end to a few shirts that were looking ragged already). After some successful shopping I met up with the girls and we continued the walk around the city, recounting what we’d been up to since I’d last seen them in Cambodia.
Eventually we made our way back towards the side of town where I was staying, and had some dinner at a local shopping mall, at an outdoor food market. A bit more wandering around, and we decided to go out and get some drinks. I dropped my purchases off at the hostel, and we went to a bar near by and ordered some beers. And then some more. We left one bar and started walking back towards the center of town, and found another. It had started to rain as we were getting there, and we managed to get inside and avoid the hardest part of the downpour. The rain stopped and we got to another bar, and before we knew it it was fairly late and the bars were all closing.
Not ready to get to bed just yet, I had heard about an all night club we could go to called Spicy (no relation to the hostel). We flagged down a tuk-tuk and got a ride there. We danced and drank some more and had a great night. Several hours later we finally were finished for the night, and parted ways back to our hostels as the sun started to rise. I walked through the door into the hostel at around 6:30 am, and crashed out on the bed.
Now my plan had been to take a bus up to Pai the next day and maybe go trekking or ride a motorbike around the countryside. However, because of the previous night I didn’t wake up until well after noon, and as I had to check out and catch a bus well before this to get to Pai, my plans were going to have to change. Anxious to get down to the islands and the beach, I decided to skip Pai and catch a bus the next day to Bangkok and make my way south.
After a slow “morning” I met up with the girls again for dinner and group moaning about how we were feeling as a result of the previous nights festivities. We were sure that none of us was ready for another night out and decided to consider our options. We opted for a movie, the new Harry Potter in fact, which made me a little homesick, as that’s exactly the kind of thing I’d do at home after a night like that. We even had a dinner of western junk food beforehand, just like home as well. The movie was alright, though nowhere near as good as the book (like usual). Following that, we went for a foot massage to finish the night of slothfulness and recuperation.
I bid the girls farewell, possibly for the last time to Eilidh, though Kirsten said she wanted to try and meet up with me in the Philippines for a couples weeks, so hopefully that will work out. The next morning I boarded a bus for the long trip back to Bangkok, where I hopefully won’t have to spend too much time.
No photos from Chiang Mai unfortunately, I seemed to always forget my camera when we were out.
Getting to the airport was more of an adventure than I had imagined. The rickshaw driver who I had made friends with the day before and arranged to get a ride with was noticeably nervous. The Maoists are known for sometimes getting violent in their strikes if people don’t comply, and by driving me he was breaking the line so to speak. At one point we even got harassed by a guy on a motorbike and had to get out and walk for about a kilometer. While they probably wouldn’t do anything to me, there’s a real danger that they could beat up the driver or throw rocks at him or even worse. However, we made it to the airport unscathed.
Despite my worries, the flight from Nepal went off without much of a hitch. I had been warned to take anything even remotely of value out of my checked bag, as Nepali customs officials are notorious for looting luggage under the auspices of searching bags. They had obviously gone through my bag, as a little plastic ziplock bag, in which I kept ticket stubs, receipts, and other valueless mementos, had been ripped open and picked through. At the very least, just open the ziplock part guys, you didn’t have to rip open the bag…
The Bangkok airport is brand new and the nicest, most modern airport I’ve ever been in. Entry to the country was a breeze, and I caught a bus out to the area I wanted to stay in for a bit, Sukhumvit. My onward flight to Hanoi wasn’t going to be for another 5 days, and as changing the flight would cost more than the original ticket, I opted to just stick around and do my Bangkok sightseeing now, skipping it when I return to Thailand in a couple months. I found a nice guesthouse to stay in, and got to sleep.
While the Sukhumvit area isn’t the popular place for backpackers in Bangkok, it really was a very convenient place to stay. There is a metro and skytrain that passes through most of the city except for the area around Khao San Road, which is backpacker central. It was quick and easy to see the rest of the city from where I was though. The first place I went was the weekend market, a massive complex of stalls selling everything you can imagine from clothes to fruit to home decor and furniture to puppies. The heat in Bangkok is even worse than Nepal, around 100 degrees Fahrenheit and at least 80 percent humidity. The market is all covered and enclosed, so the heat quickly becomes nearly unbearable, even with all the fans. I picked up a couple shirts and had some lunch, then headed back towards the hotel.
On the way back I stopped into the Jim Thompson House, the former home of an American entrepreneur and adventurer who disappeared in the Burmese jungle nearly 30 years ago. His home was a massive combination of 6 Thai houses, with western comforts installed, and has been turned into a nice museum. The tour was pretty quick, but the home was beautiful, it really felt like the epitome of what you’d picture a jungle adventurer 50 years ago living in.
The next day I caught a train up to Ayutthaya, the former ancient capital of Thailand. The city now is known for the large number of beautiful temple ruins scattered throughout, in Thai, Cambodian, and Burmese style (depending upon who was controlling the country when they were built). I spent the day touring the ruins, and then caught a late train back to Bangkok.
Now I had heard from many, many people in my travels that Khao San Road in Bangkok was the center of the backpacker world in Asia, and as such it’s pretty much gone straight to hell and is the worst place to now visit. Despite that stearn warning, or maybe because of it, I decided to leave my nice friendly guest house and venture out to see what it’s really like. I caught a taxi out there and found a room in one of the nicer hotels on the block, as I figured that if it turned out to be as bad as I’d heard, having a nice den to retreat to would be a good idea. I was right.
The first day, by the time I got checked in to my hotel and all settled, it was well into the afternoon. The hotel had a pool on the roof, so I spent the day making use of that and relaxing in the sun. It was nice to just sit an worry about nothing for a while. I did notice, however, that everyone else at the pool was definitely under the age of 20 and European of some kind. I then realized what Khao San basically was like: Spring Break. But not in the good way. I suddenly remembered that feeling of being surrounded by drunk, obnoxious 18 year olds (mostly guys) and realized now what everyone had meant by how bad things were. Going out to dinner and having a look around that night, things just got worse and I decided to call it an early night.
The next day I did some sightseeing around the area, as there are a number of spots to hit as a tourist. I went for the main two, Wat Pho and the Grand Palace. Thailand is by and large Buddhist, but the religious structures they construct here are massively different from those of China, Korea, and Tibet. Here, large, gaudy spires are stacked up high, covered in jewels and gold, glistening in the sun. No combination is too flashy for Thailand, and when the light really hits some of the buildings they become almost blinding.
The other problem I had in this area of Bangkok was the constant assault of taxi drivers and other touts harassing you at every turn. Everywhere I went there was someone ready to try and exploit me. A friendly looking Thai person comes up and starts talking to you for a while about just where you are from and how long you are visiting, and then suddenly has this one-day only jewel sale they know about you should go to. Scam. A taxi driver will tell you the site you want to go to is closed, but they know several special temples you can visit (really just shops). Scam. Everywhere you walk, someone is following you in your face trying to sell you something or scam you. By mid day, it was too much and I went back to the pool.
The next day I packed up my stuff, ran a couple errands, then caught a bus out of Khao San to the airport as fast as I could, as that seemed like a much better place to hang out. At the very least, I now know what everyone meant. Next stop: Hanoi, Vietnam.
Photos:
Ayutthaya, Thailand
Bangkok, Thailand