Thailand...just...Thailand

This past August I took my summer vacation in Thailand, I was accompanied by my friend Brandon who is also a teacher in Korea.  We planned our trip a few months ahead of time, we wanted to get some scuba diving in and we knew it would be hectic because of the infamous full moon party!  Here’s a good rule of thumb when traveling (for me); don’t plan anything in advance.  The plan was for me to fly into Phuket three days before Brandon, pick him up at the airport 1 a.m. Sunday morning and make our way to Koh Tao for some diving.  We were then going to head over to Ko Pha-Ngnan for the full moon party.  Here is what actually happened.

 

Our secret beach

Phuket

I arrived in Phuket around 6 a.m. after spending another lovely night on the floor of the Kuala Lumpur airport.  At this point, with all my holidays combined I think I’ve stayed there 6 nights, which is basically a vacation in itself.  Upon arriving in Phuket I won my first battle with the taxi drivers, I avoided them all together and opted for a bus (suck it taxis!).  I spent 150 bhat versus 700 bhat, that’s $4 versus $20, or as we say in Korea, 4 bottles of Soju versus 20!  I even managed to find the hostel after only 45 minutes.  I stayed at the Bodega hostel in Phuket because I had such a great experience at their Bangkok location.  I suggest you also do the same if you ever have the opportunity. 

I spent the first day just walking around and exploring Patong Beach…ok I spent the first day walking around getting completely lost, which is actually difficult to do because it is basically one main road connected to a beach road.  It’s interesting because during the day there are families walking around with their children, and grandparents strolling the walkways, and then the sun sets,

shhhhhh secret

then you best hide yo children, and hide yo grandparents, and for the love of god if you are with your parents…hide them too!!  Patong Beach and especially the main strip Bangla Road turns into a chaotic, neon lit, outdoor strip club, it’s hard not to stare at everything even though you are not quite sure what you’re looking at.  On the plus side the beers are cold and cheap, and the girls are beautiful.  On the confusing side the girls are boys and the boys are actually more beautiful…wait what? 

Enjoying our secret beach

I was looking how to spend my next few days in Phuket, there are loads of island hopping trips, jungle trips, elephant sanctuary experiences, I really didn’t know much of what I wanted to see except for the fact I wanted to see ‘the beach’ not the movie, but the beach in the movie.  I was at the hostel trying to figure out what to do when I met Andrew, a nice English chap (I think they say chap) who was also traveling solo, we grabbed a drink together and formed the beginning of what would soon become our Thailand motley crew! 

The hostel was completely booked due to a group of 28 Paraguayans on a group tour.  They had arranged a big birthday dinner that night in the hostel as well as reserved a V.I.P. room at one of the clubs.  Obviously, due to my fluency in Spanish and my love of V.I.P. club service I tagged along.  When I was in high school my dad used to always tell me nothing good ever happens after 1 a.m., well father…I now agree with you, especially if you are in Thailand with 28 Paraguayans and drinking free vodka.  That’s all I’m going to say about that.

street foooooood

The next day Andrew and I decided to cruise around Phuket in search of some nice beaches.  I was feeling a bit ‘under the weather’ so I was happy to jump on the back of Andrew’s bike.  We managed to recruit two new arrivals, Anna who had just rolled up (literally with a roll up suitcase) to the hostel and Mike who was also feeling ‘under the weather’ from the night before.  The four of us took off away from the hustle and bustle to get some R & R at one of many beautiful beaches Thailand has to offer.  We were recommended to go to Laem Sing Beach which was beautiful; unfortunately 75 Chinese tourists were also recommended to go there.  A very kind local who must have noticed we were not part of the 75 Chinese tourists told us about a hidden beach around the corner away from everyone.  After a bit of a hike over some treacherous rocks we found ourselves our own little private beach paradise.  It was the first beach and I still think the best beach I experienced in Thailand.  It was the perfect relaxing beach day, followed by a seafood lunch at a local market and capped off with a cruise to the cliffs to watch the sunset. 

Beach day followed by lunch!

That night was a bit of a strange experience.  It was the Queens day in Thailand and a couple of crazies set off some bombs in protest.  One of these bombs went off on the main strip, Bangla Road where I had been the previous night.  Some of the bombings made the news as I heard from some friends back home checking in to make sure everything was alright.  The town basically shutdown that night, all the restaurants bars and even the streets closed shortly after sunset.  We were also stopped on the way home from our day trip by the local police and searched.  We decided to stay at the hostel that night and relax there, and by relax I mean throw back a few buckets of long island ice T and plan our next adventure.  We decided on a day trip to ‘James Bond Island’ with some new additions Grey, Anna and Meredith!  The trip was 25 km north-east of Phuket.  The scenery is very pretty with limestone cliffs jetting out from the water.  One of these famous limestone cliffs is featured in the James Bond movie “The Man with the

James Bond Island money shot sans the 3 swimming tourists

Golden Gun”.  The boat ride and kayaking through the caves were great.  The lunch on a floating Muslim village (yes you heard me right) on the island of Koh Panyee was also great. The massive crowds on the tiny islands, not so great!  Out of spite, and because it was really really hot, we went for a swim (for some reason the only people swimming on the whole island) and became the background in thousands of tourists’ money shot of the James Bond Island.  After a long day of boat rides, kayaking, swimming and tourist watching we all headed back to the hostel.  I was leaving at midnight to pick up Brandon from the airport so we could make our way to the complete opposite side of Thailand. 

 

Sunset at the cliffs

That evening at the hostel everyone was hanging out in the main lounge reminiscing about our day and planning the next.  It turns out our group of fast friends were going to continue on together to Koh Phi Phi and had booked a tree house for the next few days.  This really put me in a bit of a conundrum.  I really wanted to see ‘the beach’ which is in Koh Phi Phi, I really like tree houses, and I really enjoyed hanging out with my new friends…buuuuut I was supposed to pick Brandon up  in the next couple hours and head to Koh Tao.  After much deliberation, a few inspirational talks (and one not so inspirational…you know who you are) I decided to completely change our plans and head to Koh Phi Phi.  I sent Brandon an email (while he was still in the air) to come meet me at the hostel, hoping he would have enough WiFi to see it when he landed.  I was a little nervous about how he would feel about this complete change of plans, so while everyone else went out that night to see ‘a show,’ I stayed back and waited with bated breath for Brandon’s hopeful arrival.  Thankfully he arrived safely, with WiFi, lots of confusion, and made it to the hostel.  I explained our new plans and gave a brief tour around town.  I think there was a lot going on in Brandon’s head between the 5 hour flight, arriving at 1 a.m in a new country, learning about our new agenda via email as soon as he arrived, and then immediately seeing the chaos of Phuket nightlife.  We had an early morning wake up to catch the ferry the following day so we made it a semi-early night.  The girls made it back from ‘the show’ at a decent hour, the boys never made it back. 

 

Lunch on the floating island

The next morning much to my dismay (and possibly a first) I was up on time, printed my ferry ticket and even had time for breakfast.  The girls were already down in the lobby waiting, Mike had just arrived home a few hours ago and was not thrilled about a bus ride, or a ferry ride…or any ride really.  Grey and Andrew were missing in action and we had to leave them in order to catch our bus.  This is when all the hangover jokes were appropriately thrown a bout on the bus ride to the ferry.  Luckily we located Andrew, who unluckily had been punched in the face by some bouncer at a club at 4 in the morning (you will have to ask him about that one), I think it had something to do with his funny accent.  We still had no word from Grey, although we had our suspicions (again…you will have to ask him about that).  7 out of 8 of us made it to Koh Phi Phi, which isn’t bad.

Koh Phi Phi

I was very excited to be on an island surrounded by crystal clear turquoise blue water.  I was also pretty excited to see the tree house we would call home for the next two nights.  Since we were all broke, or savvy backpackers (however you want to look at it) we decided to pass on the boat taxi to our accommodation and hike it.  Now keep in mind Mike is half dead and certainly not 100% sober,

Ferry got the best of everyone

 

Some worse than others

some people are traveling with suitcases (not ideal for trekking through sand) and it’s probably

Tree mansion

around 110 degrees so we are all struggling in some sense.  I must say not once did anyone complain about the hike, or more importantly pass out…very impressive

Trekk to the tree house

everybody!  Our tree house was worth every bit of the hike!  It was more like a tree mansion that slept 8 people and overlooked the ocean, really a nice find (good work Anna!).  We spent the first day down at the beach and walking around town (this is when Brandon started his 6 day shopping bender).  After spending the day swimming and scoping out the island, and getting a surprise visit from Grey we all went out for a rooftop dinner, which was accompanied by a projection screen movie (one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, although every single one of us was watching…sorta like a car wreck).  The nice thing about forming a lovely group such as ours is you don’t really need to do a lot to constantly be entertained.  We raided a local convenience store of snacks and drinks and headed to the tree house for a night of games and in-depth discussions about bigfoot (you know I’m right Meredith!).  This was one of my favorite nights of the trip.  I don’t think I have laughed that hard that much in a long time (I’d like to thank Mike for introducing the forehead game and I’d like to thank Anna for being so bad at it). 

 

Boat crew

Boat crew after almost falling overboard

The next day we rented a boat to do some snorkeling and island hopping.  The water was beautiful and the fish were plenty!  One of the lasts stops was monkey island, which shockingly is an island full of monkeys.  They certainly have become accustomed to people and are definitely less afraid of people then most people are of them.  The monkeys would grab anything they could from your hands or in your bag so you had to be a little careful.  One very chill monkey attempted to grab Brandon’s bag even

Brandon and his buddy

climbing onto his back to do it.  He then decided it was too much work and took a 5 minute break on Brandon’s shoulders.  One not so chill monkey was not happy with Andrew trying to take his water bottle back and had a buddy come to his defense, Andrew had to smack it away before things escalated.  After the cleverly named monkey island most of the crew went back to the tree house, myself, Brandon, and Anna decided to haggle 1 more hour of boat time. 

 

Not pictured...killer cats

This was sadly our last night together, we had already lost Mike who was on his way to the Philippines, and everybody else was heading their own ways the following day.  The last night was a relaxing one, massages, local food (some of it extremely, dangerously even, spicy), and drinks back at the tree house.  I attempted to sleep in a hammock that night, but was awakened by the fighting cats that would find their way onto our porch (this was much scarier than it sounds, the cats were right under the hammock and the sounds they made were terrifying.  Also, one may or may not have snuck into the room and jumped onto Mike’s chest in the middle of the night, which caused him to wake up screaming, which caused everyone to wake up, which then caused Anna in a fit of terror to somehow jump off the bed trapping herself between the bed and the mosquito net.  This was also terrifying to hear from the hammock)

 

One of my favs...sorry Mike

The next morning was an early one, me, Brandon and Grey were all heading to Koh Pha-Ngan, which entailed a water taxi, ferry, bus and a hike to our new accommodation.  This was basically a travel day as our first water taxi was at 9 a.m. and we didn’t arrive to Koh Pha-Ngan until 7:30 p.m.

 

View from sweet hotel

Koh Pha-Ngan

Home of the famous full moon party!  We arrived a few days before the big bash along with the 30,000 other people that flock there specifically for the massive beach party.  It’s not a very large island so we rented scooters for 3 days and used those bad boys as means to get around ($7 a day).  The 3 of us scootered around the island in search of nice beaches and good food, which doesn’t take a whole lot of effort, Thailand is full of beautiful beaches and delicious cheap food.   

Jungle boys

We did manage to find a nice swimming spot that we had all to ourselves, we also investigated a couple false advertisements for waterfalls along the way.  In preparation for the main event we decided to attend the jungle experience that night.  The jungle experience is really a jungle rave located in Baan Tai.  It takes place 1 day and 10 days prior to the full moon party, it is apparently renowned for its Dj’s and house music (some more impressed with the music than others).  The set up itself was very cool, we even caught a Muy Tai match in the middle of it.  Overall a good decision to go and check it out, I would recommend it.  A very bad decision to walk all the way home, that was dumb…I would not recommend that.

Muay Thai

The following day Andrew met back up with us so we had 4 out of the 8 motley crew reunited again.  Spent some time exploring the markets as well as some time at our sweet hotel swimming pool (most of the time was spent at the sweet hotel swimming pool).  There’s two parts of Ko Pha-Ngan, the one part is where all the party hostels are located as well as the full moon party (and all other parties).  The other side of the island is very quiet and a bit cheaper.  Brandon and I decided to spend the last couple nights on the quiet side at nice hotel on the beach (and we graciously let Andrew set up camp on the floor).  There are few things I love more

friends, bar, beach, sunset, music...check

than hanging out with my friends sitting at a bar on the beach at sunset listening to good music.  The night of the full moon party was upon us and we were ready to get the party started.  Brandon, myself and Andrew painted ourselves up real hippie like and were off to the biggest beach party in the world.  It was pretty much everything I thought it would be, thousands of people, loud music, crazy lights, dancing, singing, fire shows, a massive jump rope, buckets of booze, magic milkshakes, and what turned into the  largest toilet I’ve ever seen (the ocean…just in case you weren’t picking up what I was throwing down there).  Let’s just say it was interesting to be there all night and then see how everyone is managing once the sun came up, maybe interesting isn’t the right word…awkward, disturbing, inappropriate?  Let’s also just say it’s good 30 year old Brendan was there and not 20 year old Brendan. 

 

Hippies

Feeling like a potato all day after the full moon party, we did manage to be semi productive (after 1 p.m.).  We took in the islands markets and ate delicious street food one more time before we had to depart back to Korea.  It’s really a nice island but I would recommend the full moon party once and only once.  Islands are much more beautiful and enjoyable when you’re not surrounded by thousands of people (damn hippies). 

Full Mooning

 

Full Mooning

Full Mooning after effects

The next day I sadly made my 9 hr journey back to Phuket (which was a little nerve racking as my flight was that evening and I’m real good at missing flights), Brandon and the other boys went on their separate ways as well.  I am once again happy to say there were no missed flights on this trip!  Although, a few missed ferries, a missed bus and a few blown hotel reservations.  It was really an amazing trip with some amazing people.  I love experiencing new places and Thailand is one of the places I have wanted to visit since as long as I can remember.  It was a place I had very high expectations for and it did not let me down in the least.  Even more amazing than the country itself was the opportunity to take a holiday with one of my good buddies and travel with the incredible group of people we met there.  Thanks everyone for everything, it was truly an unforgettable trip! 

 

love you guys!