The islands

Wow - i can't believe how fast time has flown by... I'm back in bangkok now after roughly 10 days in the islands, which were sooo, so beautiful. But still adjusting to the challenges:

3 new things i tried this week:
-rode a MOTORBIKE! twice. I mean i didn't drive but i was at the back of one. still!
-tried the tropical Rambutan fruit. this fruit is DELICIOUS and is like the cousin of a lychee. so so good. and safe to eat because you have to peel off the spiked skin.
-tried a thai snack, coconut rice wrapped in banana leaves, with a sugary coconut "meat" in the center. i forgot what it's called but they sell them everywhere on the street for 10 baht which is like 30 cents.


Koh Samui
From my last blog entry i said i was leaving for Phuket the next morning - that morning was probably THE MOST afraid i have ever felt for my safety. I was staying at Chaweng Beach on the Samui island and we had to read safety precaution books about the area. Apparently Chaweng beach was the area with the most amount of crimes, disappearances, robberies, rapes and other police reports on the entire island and that it was very strongly advised to not be seen on the streets alone late at night or early in the morning before 9. My van was picking me up at 6am. It was still pitch black outside and literally the only living things on the side walk were me and a stray dog.. maybe two. I had to hide behind some tables and chairs at an outdoor closed restaurant so that none of the zooming motorbikes would see me. i was so scared !!!!!!!! not to mention my van was so late i wound up squatting behind a table for a half hour til the sun came out. so that was fun. once the van picks me up i make it all the way to the pier and then realize that i left soooo many things (ugh) and had to go back, so i spent an extra night, and re-did the entire squatting-behind-tables-and-chairs-while-sweating-bullets thing all over again the next morning. i survived though!

now onto more interesting things:

Phuket 
I make it to Phuket (pronounced poo-KET) after what feels like a century-long commute and am warmly greeted by two thai women working at the guesthouse and a large group of 11 australians who were all traveling for just 3 weeks. i traveled with these guys for the next 3 days. Despite my exhaustion they were able to convince me to go out and experience Phuket nightlife, which, i have to say, is slightly crazier than bangkok.... we were on this street called Bangla Road, i don't know.. you have to see it to believe it. But before we all go to Bangla Road, half of us decide to have a drink out on the beach at night instead. The beaches here at night are so, SO nice. Wish i could experience that more often. In the distance I see a floating lantern in the sky. I found it so beautiful, thinking it's just like in the movie Tangled! We all pitch in to buy one (it was like $2 or something) and let it float in the sky. Call me a huge dork (because i am), but it felt soooooo magical. i felt way more enthusiastic about it than the boys (naturally) but i was so happy i got to release a lit paper lantern to fly over the ocean beach into the night sky, watching it shrink until it blended in with the stars through its final twinkle.

We also set off some fireworks too, you can buy them everywhere in Phuket! After that we explored the many bars that Phuket has to offer and they're just....crazy..... Not to mention that Bangla Road in particular, i have never seen so many Ladyboys (thai transvestites) in my LIFE. it is pretty funny watching guys getting chased by them. But the bar scene was nuts..There are thai women dancing on poles everywhere, and this is not a closed off underground space nor is there a cover charge... just out in the open. And it sort of grossed me out how many dirty old men i saw at these places.

 

A look inside every bar... pole dancers everywhere.

Then we moved onto another bar which was "ladies night"... which means what? Reallyy built + tan scandinavian men with spiked hair doing a long choreographed dance show to mainstream music. oh my god it was hilarious. funnier were the female scandinavian tourists in front of me just swooning over these guys. 

 

Koh Phi Phi

The next morning we all left Phuket and moved onto Koh Phi Phi (yes pee-pee, an unfortunate translation), which was by FAR one of the highlights of my trip so far. It is such a beautiful place, and is actually made up of 6 small islands. Phi Phi is also a party island at night... i've noticed the islands are all about that?? they love their parties. Our first full day there we went on one of those cool boats and did a full-day snorkeling trip, it was soooo fun. I took tons of pictures of the most beautiful rocks, just so majestically protruding out of the sea, some taking on the most interesting forms.... they're landscapes that i always dreamed about seeing with my own two eyes.

Our first night before we went snorkeling... a party on the beach

They really love their fire and fireworks shows around here

Snorkeling! (i got the WORST sunburn on my feet from the snorkel fins rubbing off the sunblock... ouch).

Our boat for the full day snorkeling trip

our thai fried rice lunch break on the shore with our feet in the sand... not TERRIBLE!

This woman on the beach with us just picked up this crab with no hesitation. I didn't seriously think their eyes actually looked that way.... thank you spongebob

amazing rock

Monkey Beach! sadly there were no monkeys that day.

One of our many snorkeling stops

This is Maya Beach, where the movie "The Beach" was filmed. it was sooooooooo stunning

Maya Beach <3

On our way back to the main island.. one of my favorite pics

A few of us went back to the beach that night before I left for Krabi the next morning

Krabi - Valentine's Day!

I took a 10:30am ferry the next day and left Koh Phi Phi for Krabi where I stayed for 2 nights, and said bye to the OZ crew. I started fresh again and went to Krabi Town where they have an amazing night market of the cheapest thai food, it was all so delicious... and i have to say my tolerance for spicy food is getting a little better! My room I stayed in though was weird, it was like an infirmerie filled with patients. They were all SO quiet, one guy had an infected leg and just got back to the hostel after spending a week in the hospital, one girl got thrown off her motorbike and had battle wounds all over her body, and another guy legit destroyed his motorbike that he rented and had to pay 6,000 baht ($200?) for the damages. sucks to be him. So they were all sitting in the room recuperating from their physical and emotional trauma. So i moved along to the hostel's rooftop bar (a rare thing for a hostel to have) and met lots of europeans. We all had a good conversation though about meeting like-minded people who want to see the world. We as human beings don't like change, we latch onto familiarity but in many circumstances that tends to hold us back from growing to our biggest potential.. It was a conversation that made me feel good about my decision to come here, that the best of the trip was yet to come...  

I booked a tour on V-Day to go around Phang Nga Bay, AKA. James Bond Island. Not gonna lie it was way too touristy for my liking but i guess that's to be expected. Also, around 70% of the tourists were French. so weird. I spent the entire valentine's day alone, i didn't even have friends go on this day trip with me, and my family felt so far away... A part of me felt sort of sad that day to be in nearly complete solitude but another part of me felt that it was okay, that this day was for me to enjoy and luckily, it was very, very busy:

We explored beautiful landscapes of Phang Nga bay and the Mangrove forest area. I felt slightly underwhelmed after seeing all the landscapes in Phi Phi island but still the James Bond island was pretty impressive, stunning actually...

My Valentine's Day

Split rock on Ping Gan Island (where you view the james bond rock)

Closeup of said split rock

The amazing, gravity-defying james bond rock...

What was really cool to me was our lunch - we stopped this floating village entirely on wooden stilts over the water, called Koh Panyee Village (or Muslim Fishing Village). It was sooooooooooo cool, and we spent about 2 hours here eating and exploring.

I took a picture of a postcard of the place so you can get a better idea

In the village we also visited a school (near the rock) and watched the kids play games. it reminded me a lot of the orphanage i visited in Fiji. After getting lost in the village I made my way back to the boat and we sailed to visit Suwankhuha Temple (money cave) where there were monkeys EVERYWHERE. i got some pretty awesome pictures and we fed them bananas.

Our last stop was the Waterfall, where local young thais actually go to hang out. I liked this place a lot because it felt more tropical. I sprayed tons of bugsporay on and a bunch of us from the tour dove into the water. it was SO REFRESHING. it was such a hot day.

I came back to the hostel completely exhausted. I planned on leaving for Khao Sok National Park the next morning to be reunited with Britt and Katie, but unfortunately they left Khao Sok the day I got there. Soooo that didn't work out... In the morning before I left though I went to the river and noticed the insanely low tide, which revealed tons of mud, and with that, Mudskipper fish. I don't know if any of you have watched the Life series with Oprah on one of those discovery channels, but that's the only place i've ever heard of these... thanks, oprah! these things are so crazy. Evolution is crazy. 

A mudskipper enjoying the mud with his cute friend mr. crab

Khao Sok National Park

I could've done without going to this place.... but it was still cool. I didn't get the chance to meet with Britt and Katie since they went to Krabi as soon as I left. Khao Sok National Park is a massive park, known for having the world's largest flower and tallest trees. I only stayed here one night and i stayed in a really charmless bungalow... definitely in the roughing-it-hard category. I went on a nighttime safari which was sort of pointless because you're basically praying that the tourguide finds something interesting. We found a snake, lots of lizards, way too many spiders, a centipede and one of those twig-looking bugs, and a civet cat. The civet cat was what saved the tour...they only come out at night. All i was thinking before that point was that we found insects that could be even more easily seen during the daytime. I had a really tough time falling asleep that night, especially around 6am, but it was sooo cool. I was awoken by the sounds of the jungle - crickets, gibbons, wild pigs and crazy bird and insect sounds - a giant nature orchestra welcoming the sun at dawn. It was pretty cool but also mildly unsettling with myself hiding under my mosquito net waiting for whatever was crawling on the roof of my bungalow to move along somewhere else.

Where i stayed! it looks nice from the outside...

mehh

can you spot the 2 lizards?

Where I am now

I'm back in Bangkok, leaving for Chiang Mai tomorrow, and CANNOT BE HAPPIER. To be honest I was soooo looking forward to leaving the islands, because the majority of it all was just beaches, nothing distinctively Thai or cultural, i just felt like a really lazy tourist the whole time, spending more money than i should. It was a really emotional start to my trip with the adjustments to challenges, of meeting people and leaving them and starting over again, having plans fall through... but something happened to me during my long bus ride back to Bangkok, a huge wave of happiness and positivity saying that Chiang Mai is going to be even better than the islands, and I'll be staying in the same place for longer than just 3 nights... I have a really, really good feeling about where i'm headed to next and the things i'll be doing, the places i'll be seeing, and the people i'll be meeting. I've already been pushing myself to do things i never have before, and am living more spontaneously than i've ever been. I'm so excited about northern thailand next.