Amari Watergate & Night Bazaar

We decided that we would stay in a nice hotel in Bangkok. We haven't been exactly roughing it for the whole trip, but we wanted to stay in a place with a pool, ac & where we could actually flush toilet paper down the toilet. We checked some of the luxury hotels, Oriental & Peninsula, but realized that we could only afford to stay there about one night. Instead we chose the Amari Watergate, which was reasonable enough that we could stay there our remaining three nights. We have been pleased with our decision so far. Our room has a huge flat screen TV, came with robes & has a bathroom that is bigger than some of the bungalows we stayed in. Another plus is that in addition to a pool it also has a state of the art gym (Jen was getting tired of Levi doing crossfit in their 10x10 living spaces). Last night we went to a huge Night Bazaar and spent hours wandering around looking at all the stalls. The Bazaar was so big that Ken told us he often had trouble trying to find the same stall twice.

Sukhothai

To split the 12 hour bus ride from Chiang Mai to Bangkok we decided to stay one night in Sukhothai and visit their spectacular ruins.

5 hour bus ride from Chiang Mai to Sukhothai, hottest city we've experienced yet.

Muay Thai Boxing & Saxophone pub in Bangkok

We took a 6 & 1/2 hour bus from Sukhothai to Bangkok. Levi met up with his friend Ken (Thai law student) again to go watch some Muay Thai Boxing. Levi & Ken ended up sitting ringside for the fights, which involved some weird negotiating. Ken spoke with the ticket booth lady in Thai for about 5 minutes, then said to Levi in English that they could both sit ringside for a pretty good deal, but Ken had to pretend he was Levi's "driver." The pamphlet for the boxing stadium was pretty humorous because it featured pictures of Steven Seagal & Jean Claude Van-Damme watching matches.

There were several interesting things about Muay Thai boxing. The boxers train at camps & take the camp's name as there own last name. Each match pits blue shorts versus a red shorts. The boxers do a 5 minute stretching/praying routine that involves going to all four corners of the ring. Each fight has five three minute rounds. The first round is very low key, almost like a continuation of the warm-up. Outside the ring there was a 3 man band with the lead guy playing a flute like instrument. The music corresponds to the action in the ring. The music really speeds up in the second round when the ass kicking starts. Muay Thai boxers use their hands, shins, elbows & knees. The second fight was the best between two 20 year-old boxers that weighed about 120 pounds. They were pretty equally matched and were both landing some pretty wicked punches so by the fourth round their faces were bloody. With about 30 seconds left in the fourth round the red boxer attempted a kick & lost his balance. The blue boxer delivered a blow so hard it knocked the red boxer into the ropes, then he collapsed. Blue won by knock-out.

After the match Levi & Ken met Jen at a bar called the Saxophone pub. It featured a live Thai band playing blues. The lead singer was a heavier Thai guy with an amazing voice, when he started singing he sounded like black guy straight out of New Orleans. Ken pointed out that there was a Thai movie star in the bar, the movie star was wearing an American flag tank top so he was hard not to miss. Ken said the movie star was famous for playing villians. At one point in the night, they introduced the Thai movie star & then he sang "Johnny be good."

Sukhothai

We took a 5 hour bus from Chang Mai to Sukhothai. Sukhothai was Thailand's capital at one period and has many ruins that are so impressive it was designated a UN Heritage site. Our friends Adrian & Kerry had recommended this stop (they came back with some incredible photos). When we got off the bus in Sukhothai we realized we needed to make some room on our camera's memory card. Unfortunately we were unable to find any internet cafes that had the ability to burn our pictures onto a disc. We checked into our guest house & did our best to delete some old pictures before taking a bus out to Old Sukhothai.

The ruins are spread over 45 kilometers so there are many bike shops that you can rent from to pedal around the park. By the time we got our bikes and into the historical park it was about 4:30pm. This was good because the sun was starting to go down, making for some more bearable temperatures. We had a great time riding from each spot to the next, several of the wats were accessible by tree-lined paths around vast ponds. We noticed several professional photographers taking advantage of the amazing scenery. One looked like he was shooting a calendar or something with some models dressed up in some very colorful traditional clothing. (pictures to come later, we are posting from a slow internet cafe)

Elephant Conservation Camp & Thai Cooking Class

On our checklist for Chiang Mai was to ride an elephant through the jungle. Chiang Mai has elephant camps all over, however Jen specifically wanted to visit the Elephant Conservation Camp in Lampang (1 1/2 hours away via bus) because it is focused on ecotourism, had a good reputation for the treatment of the elephants and provided free medical care to all elephants in Thailand. Instead of the show being gimmicky it's more educational. The show featured 20 well trained elephants, & Jen was chosen to be part of the show, with an elephant putting a hat on her head. We learned elephants were used for logging, for royal transportation and by warriors, they can live until 100 years old. Today many of these domestic elephants are no longer needed in these areas, so these camps are set up to provide refuge for the elephants. We also learned we weren't supposed to feed elephants in urban markets (which we had done the day before- oops). We saw the elephants demonstrate previously used logging techniques - dragging/stacking logs.

Our elephant ride was a disappointment. Besides Levi spending our bus money home on a 30 minute ride (take our word for it, a 10 minute elephant ride is as good as a 30 minute elephant ride), our Mahout (elephant caretaker/trainer) had an angry disposition.





Met the baby elephant, so cute - surprisingly strong - grabbed out for Jens hand and nearly tugged her over the railing.































Thai cooking class - trip to the market, explanation of all the mysterious fruits/veggies we've been eating the last few weeks. Saw how they made fresh coconut milk. Class was with 5 other travellers from England, Ireland and a mom/daughter duo from the Philippines, all together decided on 4 dishes: Spicy Papaya Salad, Red Curry Chicken & Rice, Cashew Nut Chicken Stir fry and Chiang Mai Noodles. Only in Thailand would someone not be opposed to cooking in a kitchen with a plastic tarp floor, peeling wallpaper, etc. Food was delicious, instructor was awesome. Levi really enjoyed this, surprising Jen by saying it was his second favorite activity behind diving that we've experienced so far in Thailand. We think we may take a few other cooking courses together in the future.

Wats & Night Safari

Chiang Mai is a very historic city in northern Thailand that served as an important Chinese trading route. It was originally protected by a brick wall surrounded by a moat. The moat still surrounds the original city footprint & is called the "inner-moat" area. Most of the brick wall has crumbled, but the corners and a few of the main entrances still remain. We spent the morning walking around the inner-moat area exploring several Wats (temples) that were built 800-1000 years ago. Some of the structures have been refinished, while others have been left to age (sidenote, we lost our Lonely Planet so we can't remember the names of the Wats, we will have to come back and add those later).

Our favorite Wat was a huge pyramid type structure that had been partially restored. On each side were different creatures that stood as sentinels. One side had dragons, one side had king cobras & one side had a herd of elephants. We also enjoyed entering in the restored Wats that were still functioning as Buddhist temples, one had at least 50 Buddha statutes.

Our plan for the evening was to visit the Chiang Mai Zoo's "Twilight Period," which our LP said occurred from 6-9PM, we really wanted to go to this zoo because they have Giant Pandas. We flagged down a taxi (in Chiang Mai they are red trucks w/canopies with bench seating in the back). The taxi drove us out there, we paid him, he left, then we found out that the Twilight Period is no longer operating. We were stuck 12 kilometers outside of town & had a stinging feeling the taxi knew all along that he was driving us to a closed zoo. There were a few other taxis outside, offering to take us to Chiang Mai's latest attraction on the other side of town called the Night Safari. We had been scammed alright, but we figured what the hell, so we took another taxi to the Night Safari.

Thailand's old Prime Minister (the one that got overthrown in 2006), was from the Chiang Mai province & he funneled a bunch of the country's money back into the area. One of his pet projects was the Night Safari, which cost millions. When we arrived the grounds looked like Jurassic Park, there were beautiful buildings adorned with animal statues everywhere. The Night Safari consisted of four things: 1) a 1 mile walking loop around a lake with animal enclosures on each side (highlights were rare white tigers, black leopards & pygmy hippos), 2) a 30 minute tram ride called "predator prowl" (highlights were lions, tigers & Asian bears- oh my), 3) a 30 minute tram ride called "savanna safari"(highlights were white rhino, giraffes & zebras) & 4) a laser-water fountain show in the middle of the lake set to classical music. The laser show was pretty ridiculous, but awesome at the same time. The differences between this zoo and one you might find in the US is all the libability induced protection measures that an establishment in the US would take and that the Thai totally disregard - for example, when our tram stopped at the tigers one was standing on his platform which was of equal height to the 4 foot fence that enclosed him, so by standing on the platform the tiger could've easily jumped over it and devoured us, this was true for most of the animal's enclosures. While a bit scary this meant all of the animals were really close to us and easy to spot. Downside of the night was when we went to get a taxi home it was an unnegotiable 250 baht (which was an over three times the 70 baht it had cost to get out there). We concluded the night cursing the Chiang Mai taxi mafia (we ended up negotiating the ride back down to 200 baht with the help of an older Thai gentlemen).

Chiang Mai

Levi and I have been telling ourselves that the broken a/c bus rides between cities adds character and adventure to our trip, we've come to feel like we've had so much of it, character is bubbling through our pores, for the next leg of the trip we boarded a quick 70 minute lux flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. On just this short trip we were served a small lunch, water, coffee, juice, pillows, blankets and a comfortable temperature - this was a well appreciated break from our backpacking style - awe.

Chiang Mai is a larger city, we're staying in the hub-bub of it all with a pool and an unnecessarily a/c'ed room. We arrived here late afternoon and decided to have a chill evening which consisted of a small romantic dinner cruise through the city and a long stroll through the night market to refine our bartering skills. The details are escaping us now but the evening was mellow, the food was delicious, the scenery was beautiful and the haggling was... interesting. Oh and Jen delighted in the opportunity to feed a random small elephant in the middle of the street for 20 baht.

We learned we're not the best at bartering - sure we get the price down but we're unclear about how we feel about it. Prices vary wildly here so there isn't really a good measure to determine a fair price, also most the people at the market are poor so you're torn between not wanting to deprive the family of the appropriate hard earned profit and the desire to avoid getting ripped off, because we're unclear of this line we're also unclear to as if we should feel angry for being ripped off, guilty for undercutting a starving family or satisfied with our excellent bargaining skills. Our friends Adrian and Kerry visited Thailand and had a similar blog (which actually inspired this one), one of their many entertaining entries depicted their similar struggle and final implementation of a good cop/bad cop bartering strategy. We've decided to give this method a go on our next Night Market visit :)

St. Patrick's Day

We decided our best bet for celebrating St. Patrick's Day was in Bangkok. We had a sweaty 2 hour bus ride from Kanchanaburi with no ac, we were crammed in like sardines & by the time we arrived our clothes were soaked in sweat. We checked into a guesthouse that we found out catered to Danish travelors, but they still gave us a room. We were pretty wiped so we spent the early evening in the guesthouse's "DVD room" watching the movie Open Water, a low budget film about two divers that surface in the middle of the ocean to find that their boat has left them. It is based on a true story, no one knows what really happens, but the movie's take is that they were eaten by sharks around dusk. We were glad we did our night dive before seeing this movie.

Our St. Patrick's celebration started off by taking a wild tuk tuk ride to O'Reilly's. Tuk tuks are like a three wheeled motorcycle with rickshaw seating on the back. Our driver enjoyed quickly accelerating to unreasonable speeds, followed by questionable swerving. Our hair was a little wind blown when we came to a skidding stop alongside our Irish Bar destination.

We couldn't help but laugh when we entered O'Reilly's to see that their St. Patricks Day special was a two-for-one deal on... Coronas (there were yellow Corona balloons everywhere). Levi met a Thai law student last year in Hong Kong at the Vis Competition, named Ken. He joined us along with two of his other Thai friends & a Japanese friend. Ken's Thai friends had met the Japanese friend while studying in Germany so it was easier for them to communicate in German, rather than in English, Japanese or Thai. The bar also had a great Irish band that in addition to playing U2 hits, also busted out American classics like Sweet Home Alabama. Ended up being a delightfully random night full of odd international twists.

Reminiscing Already...

Lately blogging has taken a backseat to our Bangkok/Chiang Mai adventures, but mostly we've just grown weary by the activity packed days, thick heat and daunted by the task of conjuring up a witty comment or two. A long the way we've also left out a few details we wanted to document on the blog before they're forgotten.

As far as Thai cities go, Kanchanaburi holds a small place in our hearts which is why we feel the need to go and document a few things we enjoyed about it:

By LP's recommendation we stayed at Blue Star Guest House, since Kanchanaburi's hot heat was the type you could choke on we treated ourselves to an AC room, this alone could be the root of crush on the city - anyhow we've said this before. Below is a photo of Blue Star's tree-house style bungalows that border the river. There were so many small things we liked about this place, one of Jen's favorites was the bi-lingual talking birds caged on the open air deck that would converse with the guests. They would speak phrases in Thai and also knew a few in English but strangely they said them with Thai accents. One of their accented English phrases was "I liiike yooou" and when the guest house kitties would stroll past their cage they taunted them with "meow meow meow meow".

Kanchanaburi also had great riverside restaurants where you could watch beautiful sunsets. Instead of dinning riverside you could book a seat on a dinner barge that was pulled up and then back down the river while you and dinner and watched the sunset. We knew you could do this in Chiang Mai and Bangkok so we opted to do this later.

Ooh I almost forgot, we took a photo of this gas station to depict how different things are here in Kanchanaburi. This gas station sells tall glass bottles of gasoline while doubling as a vendor cart that sells soups and meats.

"Bridge over the River Kwai"

Growing up Levi watched many old WWII movies with his dad, Dave. Today, we visited the namesake of one of those movies, "The Bridge over the River Kwai."

During WWII the Japanese invaded Thailand and needed to establish a supply route over land because the allies were successfully blocking their routes over water. The British, who were in Burma (Myanmar), had considered an overland railroad before, but abandoned the idea because the terrain was too difficult. The Japanese proceeded with the engineering feat. The Japanese had an almost unlimited supply of man power from their conquest of Asia coupled with their growing numbers of POWs. They were able to complete the railroad, but it came an extreme cost of human life. Around 100,000 people died completing the bridge.

We visited the Thailand-Burmay Railway Centre, which was a very well done museum detailing the rise of the Japanese before WWII, their invasion into Asia, the need for the railroad, the challenging conditions & the brutality of the POW camps. One of the most moving displays was one containing many railstakes, where each one symbolized 500 deaths. Jen was also really touched by the display showing the prisoners personal belongings (letters from their loved ones, carved chess pieces, diaries with faded drawings, etc...). The prisoners kept most of their records in the cemeteries because the Japanese would not let them openly have personal belongings. The Japanese would not enter the POW cemetery for fear of the dead.






After we left the museum we went across the street to the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery. The Thais donated this land so known graves of Dutch, English & Australian POWs could all be honored together in the same place. There was a plaque that said the unknown POWs were honored in a separate war memorial that was placed in Hong Kong. Levi visited that memorial last spring on his trip with Kirt Marsh.

Congrats Tim & Laura!

Today on the bus ride to Erawan Falls we looked at the time, counted 15 hours back (as we often do) and realized everyone would be sitting down to eat dinner at your reception right then. Oh how we wished we were able to be in two places at one time or have the ability to zip quickly back for the party and to see your new house! We hope it went well and can't wait to see the photos and hear the stories. Congrats guys!

In celebration of today here's one of our favorite photos of Laura & Tim:

Erawan Falls National Park

So far we're really enjoying Kanchanaburi, the Thai to westerner ratio is far better than the previous touristy places we've visited. The weather further north has been quite hot and muggy. Today we ventured out to Erawan Falls, which is a 7 tiered waterfall, each of which you have to hike to see. The first five tiers drop into deep aqua swimming lagoons, thick with large fish that nibble at your toes as you swim.

We made two mistakes with today's venture to Erawan, first we decided to visit here on a Sunday which is when all the local Thais come to swim and picnic with their families. This mistake was unavoidable as we're leaving here tomorrow , but while there were swarms of jovial Thais everywhere it was quite nice to see the Thai people outside of their 12+ hour tourism driven jobs. The crowds were easily escaped by climbing higher in the tiers of falls. Tier five was the most picturesque, with water running off the tall lime stone rocks into the lagoons surrounded by a lush jungle, except this was mistake number 2. Both Levi and Jen can be absent-minded at times, but this rarely happens simultaneously, however today we both failed to grab the camera on our way out to one of the most picturesque destinations of our trip yet! Shoot. Shamefully the photos here were lifted from other people's blogs :( Tier four was our favorite because the limestone rocks at this one had more of a slanted (steep & tall) natural water slide shape to them that we took full advantage of! This reminded us of the Silver Apron above Vernal Falls in Yosemite from last summer - so fun :)

Strangely on the rugged path to the park there was a casual Thai guy taking photos of people walking by, later when we were walking that same path out we realized why. This guy took photos of tourists, cut them into a circle and then glued them to the inner circle of a cheesy Erawan Falls small plate (see photo), but it wasn't like this was a photo you were aware was being taken or posed for in front of an attraction of sort, it was an unsolicited photo of you walking a 1/2 mile beaten path to the falls with the sun beating down hard and sweat pouring off your face. Because of the randomness of it all and probably in spite of Jen's protests Levi felt compelled to buy his plate for a whopping $3 U.S.

Tonight we're heading to Kanchanaburi's night market. We're expecting blocks of food stalls, music, stands of (hopefully) authentic, less touristy handicrafts, etc. We'll report more on this later and hopefully have some photos of our own this time to show for it.

We're at a bit of a cross road here, we had our trip figured out through Kanchanaburi with two separate options for the next remaining 6 days before our final 3 days (reserved for Bangkok). Option A: Head Southeast for 1 night in Trat and then 5 nights in Ko Chang an island in the SE Gulf of Thailand for relaxation and additional diving opportunities or option B: Head North to the historical ruins for Sukothai for one night/two days and then head to Chiang Mai a culturally rich large city packed with distinctive and delicious cuisine, trekking opportunities, elephant riding and fantastic markets. First we were leaning towards the island life, but Jen is craving more culture and Levi having recently faced a bout of "islanding-out" (he was tempted to buy a shark tooth necklace and baggy island pants) has decided he might not be able to resist this temptation twice :) So North it is, but first we're decided to make an impromptu stop in Bangkok for one night first where we intend to find an Irish Pub and recreate the St. Patty's Day magic both Levi & Kirt experienced on their trip to Hong Kong last year :)

First Sharks, Today Tigers, Next Elephants!

After our bus arrived in Bangkok, we hopped on another bus for a 2 & 1/2 hour ride to the town of Kanchanaburi (west central Thailand). When we arrived in Kanchanaburi we thought we had negotiated a taxi ride to where we were staying, but found out that the 55 year old man we had been talking to was actually going to ride us there on his bike pulling a modern day rickshaw. It was like 90 degrees out (also 90% humidity) & this guy pedaling us & our huge bags was an amazing feat. We decided to up the 50 baht ($1.50 US) he had agreed on and give him a full 100 baht.

We are staying at Blue Star Bungalows on the River Kwai. The prices are much cheaper here than they were on the islands so for the first time on our trip we decided to upgrade, which meant by spending 100 extra baht ($3 US) we get air conditioning. Total our room is 350 baht (about $10 US), it also includes another first on our trip, a hot shower, but with the heat we don't think we will be using this feature much.

After we checked into our room we booked a 45 minute taxi ride out to the Tiger Temple. This is totally a tourist trap, but we had to go. The story goes, a villager came across an orphaned tiger cub many years ago and brought it to his local Buddhist Temple because there was no where else to take the cub. The monks took very good care of the tiger, word spread, more cubs were dropped off, now the monks take care of many tigers (& several other animals too).

Because it is still considered a holy place, Jen had to wear long jeans & a t-shirt (no tank-tops or shorts for females). Several volunteers also live with the monks and help take care of the tigers & facilitate visitors. We were expecting a huge line, but it wasn't too bad. After waiting about 5 minutes, we were individually led into a canyon where the tigers spend their afternoons (a volunteer holds your hand, while another volunteer takes pictures with your camera).

Jen went first & Levi enjoyed watching her face light up when she was able to kneel down and pet the fur of a 300 pound Bengal Tiger. The pictures tell the story better than we could write it out.

The tigers seem to be well kept and the large amount of donations the monks get are building new tiger areas.

Similan Islands

We booked a one day two-dive tour of the Similan Islands with an outfit called Sea Dragon Diving. We were on a pretty big boat with about 15 other divers from about 4 different diving companies (including 2 Japanese diving companies & 1 German company). The boat was big enough where we were not tripping over each other (we enjoyed quite a bit of time out on the sun deck) & it was well stocked with snacks (cookies & fresh pineapple). We were pleasantly surprised to find out that we were the only 2 divers through Sea Dragon, which meant we had our divemaster, Ben, as a guide all to ourselves.

Ben is about our age, is from London, but has been living in Khao Lak & working on live aboard dive boats for about 4 years. It was about a 2 & 1/2 hour boat ride out to the islands & we had a good time visiting with Ben about being a foreigner in Thailand. He had a great story about waking up to a King Cobra in his bathroom (& then having one of his Thai friends come break its neck).

Our first dive was off of Similian Island #5. Because the islands are so far away from the mainland, the visibility in the water can be up to 45 meters. We had about 35 meter visibility, which was about 15 meters better than we had experienced in Kho Tao. Our first descent down was surrounded by breathtaking purple & orange coral. Besides the coral, other highlights of the dive were seeing a sting ray, ribbon eel, garden eels & a family of clown fish.

Our second dive was off of Similian Island #7. The highlight of this dive was seeing a leopard shark. Ben led us out to a shelf that was about 23 meters deep, when we looked over the edge we saw this big tail flip around that belonged to a shark that was hovering about 10 meters below. The shark turned a full circle giving us a real good profile & the ability to see his spots. We spent the rest of the boat ride back sitting with our legs over the railing looking for flying fish, we saw quite a few, those little suckers can fly a good 15 meters. We got back to Khao Lak about 7:30pm, ate dinner, then waited at an internet cafe until 9:00pm to catch our night (public) bus to Bangkok.

One night bus to Bangkok can make a hard man humble. When the bus picked us up the only two seats left were in the very back (which were over some hot part of the bus, not sure if it was the engine). The bus had air conditioning, but Levi still felt he was having a heat stroke because he had limited his water intake at dinner so he wouldn't have to go to the bathroom the whole bus ride. Jen appeared not to have a problem with sleeping soundly, but Levi is convinced the Chinese torture Falun Gong by making them ride 12 hours in the back seat of a public night bus to Bangkok. We arrived at Bangkok at 9:30 am, Jen looked like she had got a good night sleep, Levi looked like he had been rode hard & put away wet.

A Day of Waiting in Khao Suck

Levi says Khao Lak is growing on him, but Jen feels quite differently, it's still the same hole she found it yesterday. But since Khao Lak is the jumping off point for the best diving in all of Asia and the next avaiable 2 spots on a dive boat for the Similian Islands was on Friday we decided to stick it out here and make the best of it. This morning we slept in for the first time in the last two weeks, we also spent the ENTIRE day at the beach, we've had a few beach bum moments on this trip so far but never one that didn't involve travel that day or something else pressing so this was nice.

We played in the waves, read loads, worked on our tans and napped. We also devised a plan to make something fun in the sand. Jen decided on a big sea turtle as that is what she's hoping to see most on tomorrows dive, Levi feigned interest until he spotted the digging stick that Jen procured to build her turtle, which inspired him to enthusiastically dig a hole in the sand for the entire duration that it took Jen to the create her turtle, again stating "digging holes is one of my favorite things to do" which Jen finds amusingly random :) The turtle's shell is made with shells found in just a 5ft radius of where Jen was sitting. It's incredible, the variety, shapes and sizes. (Just beyond the turtle in the second photo is Levi's gigantic hole and his fortress around it :)

We tried to do a little souvenir shopping here but the strip malls shops here specialize in touristy crap and poorly replicated fake bags, clothes, etc. On the bright side internet, food, beer & wine is cheap, the downside is since we're not supposed to drink the night before a dive we are unable to find enjoyment in Khao Lak via a pair of beer goggles.

In response to a few comments:

Carmen - I love that your friend bought Cloudy and Lucy a toy, how thoughtful of her! I hope the toy brings Lucy out of her shell a bit and her diplomacy improves :) Thanks for your continual posts on the blog, we always enjoy reading them :)

Adrian, Kerry, Mark, Stephanie & Mike - Your insight on Thailand and sharing of your experiences here have been invaluable for us. We think of you guys often and have plenty of stories to share that you'll appreciate when we return. Stephanie, yesterday in the rain the only dry stitch of me were the contents of the rootbeer pack! Thanks again for letting me borrow it!

Salina - I LOVE that you looked up the Railey beach crabs for us! This made me smile to think that you shared our curiosity to find out what the balls were all about :)

Megan - We've met quite a few Germans here, and I tell them of my American friend that fell in love with a German named Janek and is now living Cologne :) It's a good conversation starter.

Khao Lak- Aurora of Thailand

Our trip so far has been amazing, in large part due to following recommendations in the Lonely Planet Guide to Thailand- we have had incredible diving on Koh Tao, rock climbing in Railey & snorkeling off Ko Phi Phi. So it was a surprise to us when we finally arrived at our next destination, the coastal town of Khao Lak, to find Thailand's version of Seattle's arm pit, Aurora Avenue.

Lonely Planet's write up for Khao Lak said that this coastal gem in particular had been hit really hard by the 2004 Tsunami and was having trouble rebounding with its tourist flow. This description coupled with Khao Lak's proximity to the diving off Similan Islands convinced us to take the 4 hour journey up here from Ko Phi Phi (2 hour boat ride & 2 hour bus ride).

When we got off the bus we saw just the opposite of Lonely Planet's description, the town was overflowing with tourists, which we assumed contributed to its eye sore of strip mall stores lining the busy highway (e.g., Seattle's Aurora Avenue- including the seedy massage parlors). We also found that the beach was entirely cut off to the general public by overpriced mega-resorts. This part reminded us of Cancun, Mexico, a beach that has had it soul carved out.

To make matters worse, a huge rain storm began pouring right when we were exploring town (we were completely soaked in the first minute, see photo below). The town has no sidewalks so we were walking on the side of the road. The motorcycles and scooters racing by seemed like they were intentionally swerving to hit us and if they missed they seemed like they were at least making an effort to splash us from the huge puddles forming.

The silver lining on the storm cloud. When we finally cut through a resort's property to get to the beach it was amazing. The rain stopped, the clouds parted and the sun shined down on the biggest waves we have seen so far in Thailand. We joined a bunch of other people and jumped in the ocean and did some impromptu body surfing, it was incredible.

On our way back we found that on a second glance even Khao Lak has some great tucked away secrets, just like Aurora. Or as Luke would say, every once in a while the sun does shine on a dog's asshole. We found our cheapest bungalow yet (it's about a ten minute walk from the beach, including a harrowing dash across the highway) and had dinner at a great bar where we had two pitchers of Chang Beer (Thailand's equivalent of Miller High Life) - photo of Jen washing her Khao Suck sorrows away with beer none the less! Dinner was served by a Lady Boy (more on these coming in future blogs). Levi had a tasty all you can eat Thai BBQ for 200 baht (US $6) that included chicken, pork and squid, this is almost like Melting Pot sytle - you're given a tray of raw meats and an interesting bowl that is filled with a moat of broth and other make yourself soup ingredients then a circular steamer in the middle that cooked the meats - delicious! We are giving Khao Lak one more night & then doing two dives off the Similan Islands on Friday.

Ko Phi Phi, Three Island Snorkle Tour

After more analyzing than the topic deserved we decided not to do the overnight camping trip off of Phi Phi Leh (Ko Phi Phi Don's smaller uninhabited sister island). We originally wanted to do this in order to experience Phi Phi's beauty without experiencing it's over developed touristy feel, but since we already found this on long beach we opted for an all day snorkeling trip around 3 islands instead. This allowed us to see more of the surrounding area and still enjoy our slice of seclusion in the evening.

We had to catch a longtail to town for our snorkel tour with about 14 other people which didn't make much sense since, to our surprise, our first snorkel destination was right off the Long Beach in front of our bungalow. We've learned to go with the flow - not much in Thailand makes sense to us. Each of the islands we visited are apart of Phi Phi's National Marine Park, they are uninhabited, and still have their natural abundant shell & coral filled beaches. We completed a full loop around Phi Phi Don (the main island we stayed on), Phi Phi Leh and Bamboo Island. After the familiar Long Beach snorkel we buzzed out to Bamboo Island, snorkeled and had lunch on the beach. After Bamboo Island we stopped at Maya Beach (where the movie The Beach was filmed) for snorkeling and relaxation. The snorkeling here was the best we've experienced yet! It felt like an underwater version of Alice in Wonderland. There were car-sized yellow, orange and purple coral plumes sprouting from the ocean floor like gigantic mushrooms. Schools of fish would appear intermittently in ridiculously dense populations, they would swim right through you as if you weren't even there, evoking a dizzying feeling. Often our guide would throw bread into the water on top of where you were snorkeling and the fish without warning would swarm around you and devour the bread above, this was startling and beautiful all at once.

One of our favorite fish is the Parrot fish, they are fairly large in size and wield striking colors and patterns like purple/orange/hot pink or teal/electric blue and red. Similar to their namesake they have beak like mouths and when they eat the coral you can hear them chomping - chomp, chomp chomp - very cool.

Our guide was awesome, he is a native Thai and lived on Phi Phi for the last 35 years - back in the time where Phi Phi Island was inhabited by a mere population of 300 and was primarily a fishing town. He said back then there was one bungalow you could rent and it was just 30 baht a night (about $1 US today). As we buzzed around the islands our guide was very conscientious of us, he stopped for good photo opts and to relay historical stories of the area, none of which was listed in the package nor expected. On the way back he went the extra 2nd mile by offer ring to park the boat on the west side of the island (where there is no development) so that we could watch the sunset. Our boat was just wrapping up 7 hours of snorkeling/touring, it was beginning to get cold and none of us had a stitch of dry clothing so we all voted no. However, if we would've known how spectacular the sunset was going to be that night we would've voted differently. When we emerged from our bungalows that evening, finally showered and clean we were greeted with an intense color splashed sky of purples, pinks, and oranges, and this was just the top 1/3 of the sunset that was going on behind the island in front of us! Never less it was still very beautiful from where we stood.

Despite it's small portions and Levi's need to order one entree, two appetizers and a dessert to fill up we decided to eat at the same restaurant as last night. A single glass of wine in Thailand usually costs double or sometimes triple the cost of your single entree. The red wine at this place is only 70 baht (incredible price!), it is very chilled and interesting in taste but at that price we'll take it - and we did x 4 each in fact. For our last glass of wine we moved to the abandoned beach below where a spontaneous fire show broke out. With sand between our toes, tasty wine in our hands, as sky FULL of sparkly stars and almost no one on the beach this was the perfect end to another perfect day in Thailand.