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Published: October 3rd 2007
Living the Good Life
I'm certainly not at any $5/night joint with only a bed and fan this week...(Technically you could claim this is Part III for Thailand as it's my 3rd entry about it...but it's the second time I've been in the country...so Part II will work)
Planes, Trains and Automobiles...well...no planes...but plenty of the rest It started at 8am in Kampot, Cambodia and ended sitting in the lobby of the Marriott Phuket Beach Club with a beer in hand as my parents arrived from the airport. In between there was a mini-bus, a bus, a moto, a ferry, a saewntheau (my 3rd different spelling of this word), another mini-bus, another bus, and a taxi - thus concluding 17hrs of travel on day one. The next day involved me walking all over Bangkok, buying a new polarizer for my camera (original destroyed at Angkor Wat), and hanging out at the mall (b/c it had air-con) before I resumed travel with a train (no air-con and delayed 5hrs in the middle of the night), a bus, a moto, and a golf cart...which took me to our sweet villa in time for me to get a start on the room tab by eating some pad thai with a beer at the beach before Mom and Dad arrived.
Breakfast Buffet...My Favorite Part of the Day
Endless supply of many different kinds of foods & drinks - including our daily memosa, or variant thereof. I'm getting hungry just typing about it. There was also some sushi, a soft pretzel, and the Bourne Ultimatum...but that's not important. Actually...I will say that I had my most American moment in a while that afternoon in Bangkok. I was walking through the mall to the cinema to see the Bourne Ultimatum with an Auntie Anne's soft pretzel in one hand and a Dairy Queen Blizzard in the other. As I've said before...sometimes I just have to take a break from the travel mindset.
Back to the story at hand...
Not that my entries for Thailand have been all that culturally informative, but this entry covers the truly non-culturally loaded portion of my Thai experience. I was basically in line for a few weeks of island fun surrounded by loads of travelers of all types.
Meet The Parents My parents are on the final leg of their own partial-world tour and have been following my footsteps in an accelerated fashion (Fiji, NZ, AUS, and now Thai) and have caught up to me in Thailand. Since they're a bit fancier and more refined (and better funded) than I am, this week was to be spent at the Marriott. Nice.
I felt a
lot better when they arrived because I felt that I was lacking credibility at a place like this after walking up smelly, dirty, and with multiple backpacks hanging off me...not the standard client profile of this joint.
Unfortunately, it's monsoon season here in Phuket and we got a pretty good dose of monsoon. It was nice when I got there, but apparently my parents have had a raincloud following them in their travels and it somehow made the journey with them from Australia and planted itself at the Marriott for a few days.
Thankfully, the room was really, really nice (just a wee bit better than what I've been staying in for the last several months) and the Marriott had 6 restaurants (sushi, Italian, Thai, steak place, general grill, & deli) on the grounds. I don't care what the weather is...just give me 6 restaurants and charge it to room 1422, please. Besides that, the Marriott was well stocked with multiple pools, complimentary umbrellas (got a lot of use), daily dance/fire/drum show, a Swiss-German employee so Mom could speak German every day (she used to teach it), and two elephants to boot.
Due to the rain, there
was a lot of playing of cards, watching a few movies, and plenty of buffets. One morning it looked nice so we booked a boat trip to see what visual delights the Andaman side of Thailand could offer. The area is well known for its
karst (steep limestone) formations and we ventured out to have a look.
It turns out that the weather has a sense of humor and as soon as the boat was far enough away so that the trip wouldn't be canceled...down came the rain...and lots of it. This made the scenery less stunning, photography difficult, all of us wet, and Mom unhappy. We did manage to float into some caves and stop off at an island that had been used in the filming of the James Bond flick, "The Man With The Golden Gun." So we had that going for us, which is nice.
The weather did finally clear for the last couple of days & we managed one more tour that gave us an elephant show & ride, monkey show, rubber tree farm, coconuts, water buffalo...the standard Thai dog-and-pony show. Well, the time eventually came for us to part our ways and for
me to leave the comfort of the Marriott and the company of my parents. They were off to Hong Kong and I was off to Ko Phi Phi (pronounced "Pee-Pee")...one of the more scenic islands (actually 2 islands...one was used for the movie "The Beach") in Thailand.
"Want to split a room?"..."Sure"..."Ok, my name is Marc"..."I'm Joanne"..."Ok, let's go" (it's not as racy as it sounds)
I had anticipated not liking Phi-Phi because I had heard it was over-developed and too touristy. So the plan was to just stay in Phi-Phi for a day and then head off to some other places. Once again it turned out that I didn't know what I was talking about and ended up staying 4 days. I guess it was rather touristy, but I still had a great time.
In addition to being really beautiful and relaxing there, I hooked up with a good crew of folks - always a plus. I find it a bit humorous how this connection began though. On the ferry (slow boat overflowing with backpackers in seats, on the roof, hanging over the side, etc) I heard an Irish girl and 2 English guys ask each
Phi Phi From Above
A view of the sandbridge that links two islands into one. This bridge is where all the action is. Can see that it's low tide as the bay on the right is really shallow in this pic. other about the name of a particular island. I chimed in to answer the question and ended up chatting with them for about 5 minutes before resuming my spaced out enjoyment of the views. When we arrived at the pier, there were about 50 touts there to swarm all over the 100+ backpackers getting off the boat trying to get us to stay at their hotel. After chatting with a couple of them, I found one in the area I wanted and was about to head off with him...but then saw the Irish girl and English guys asked if they needed a room. The guys said no but she said she did and I told her to come along to see if they had 2 available. The hotel guy said "no no...only have one room." She and I looked at each other and I said "Do you want to split a room?" She said "ok." This became the first time (soon to become almost habitual) I've agreed to share a room with someone whose name I didn't even know.
In the hostel-style accommodation world, it's very common because everyone is staying in dorms. But somehow it was just really
Joanne and Captain Jack Sparrow
This dude worked at one of the chilled out beach bars and really reminded me of Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean. He even had the same speech patterns (ie - semi-drunk). "Now bring me that horizon!" humorous (and characteristic of the backpacking community) to me that by simply being backpackers we both felt ok sharing a room with a stranger.
Phi-Phi was one of the areas hardest hit by the tsunami of 2004 - resulting in many deaths & injuries and widespread destruction of the village. Several places had photo albums showing the devastation. The physical destruction was like you would have seen on TV...trees ripped from the ground, cars in lobbies of destroyed hotels, etc. But the tough ones to see were photos of the loss of life and the emotion of survivors helping out or looking for loved ones. Thankfully for the people of Phi-Phi and nearby areas, tourism is back in full swing and the physical scars of the tsunami are becoming fewer and fewer as we all come and spend our money there, thus helping rebuild.
I'm not sure how to transition from death and destruction back to my carefree existence on this island...so I'll just talk about bugs instead. One night we got back to the room after having watched a dozen or so locals spinning various forms of fire on the beach while dancing to music...and as Joanne
Fire Dancers on Phi Phi
Crank up some music...light something on fire...and you have a fun little lfire show. went to her bag, a cockroach jumped into it. She flipped out and hopped onto her bed and called her boyfriend in Ireland as I was nominated to get our new friend out of the room. I can think of few things that I'd rather do less than willingly get closer to a cockroach, but dealing with a freaked out Irish woman in the middle of the night is one of them. I'm not sure I got it out of the room, but after a lot of chasing I managed to convince both myself and Joanne that I couldn't find it anymore and our lives weren't in significant danger. Barry (the boyfriend 1/2 a world away) reprimanded her for treating me like an exterminator and we called it a night.
Full Moon Fever It began on the 24th or 25th. "It" being a mass movement of every backpacker in the region toward Koh Phangan. Why is Phangan special? Once a month it is the home of the world's largest beach party...the Full Moon Party...for August it fell on the 28th. The word on the street is that if you don't get there 3-4 days early, you won't find
Full Moon Fever
All geared up and ready for the Full Moon Party. Also the last photo ever taken of this shirt... accommodation that is either a)close to Hat/Had Rin Beach (THE beach) or b)worthy of being lived in. I was enjoying PP, so I didn't get there until the 27th...and ended up suffering a little of "a" and a lot of "b".
On the way there I teamed up with a couple of Northern Irish guys - Nick and Gary - thus bringing me one step closer to having met all the Irish of the world (almost there). We had also gotten an email from my friend Zsa Zsa (bringing me closer to having met all of the Dutch) saying that she found a place not too far away that still had bungalows available. Sweet.
Everything she said was true...not too far...and available. What wasn't mentioned was the brown water that came out of the showers...which wasn't always the case...sometimes nothing came out of the showers. I ended up not showering much here because I just felt dirtier after showering...ick.
We all snagged some dinner and headed out for the nearly-full moon party to get a lay of the land. The night was quite a bit of fun as we wandered up and down the beach from DJ
Full Moon Fiasco
This was taken by Nick - the Irishman. Doesn't do a great job of showing the chaos...but it's all I have. to DJ and we felt well prepared for the festivities the next night...though I did somehow manage to stub my two big toes and cut another one. This is what I get for dancing/running around barefoot all night...oops.
The night of the 28th was upon us and it was time to get ready.
Flip-flops - check
Bandages on feet - check
Board shorts - check
Shirt - check
Money - check
Psychedelic face paint - check (necessary in my opinion)
Cameras & other valuables locked in hotel safe - check
The Irish lads and I were off to the beach. With each step the pounding bass from multiple DJs got nearer and nearer...and my excitement level got higher and higher. We expected a similar crowd as the previous night...silly rookies. We walked out onto the beach and saw a pulsing mob of people stretching from one end of the beach to the other (I'd guess 600-800m or so?). There are about 10-12 different DJs, a designated sleep area, guys spinning fire sticks/twirling flaming cords/etc, and literally thousands (6-10k or so?) of (mostly) backpackers. It's a wide beach too...probably 50m between the bars and the water. So just
imagine a bunch of football fields end to end and loaded with people jumping all over the place.
I was impressed that I managed to keep track of Nick and Gary until nearly dawn...and at 11am (DJs stopped at 10am) after 12 hours of full moon fever I got out of the water (who doesn't love a nice swim after that much dancing?) and began to head home.
Flip-flops...no idea. But there were loads laying around apparently similarly abandoned by their owners, so I found some that were my size and they've served me well ever since.
Bandages...gone
Shirt...nope
Board shorts - still securely on
Money...not so much
Face paint...pretty much gone
Cameras and other valuables...still secure in the safe.
I had been really tempted to take my small camera to the party but knew that sounded like a horrible idea. And based on my ability to lose everything that night, I'm glad I left it behind. Unfortunately, this means I haven't any photos of the big event.
If you ever have the chance, I suggest a stop in Koh Phangan for this party - it's quite a sight to see. Having conquered the party and
recovered for a day, it was time to head off to Koh Tao - the last of my island tour and supposedly the most chilled out.
BWaM - Backpackers With a Mission Tao is visited mostly by divers as it is one of the cheaper places in the world to get certified and has quite a good selection of dive sites. After somehow ending up in another bungalow with someone I didn't know - Shanna from Switzerland this time - I took a couple of days to relax and figure out if I was going to dive or not.
Rather than staying in the main town area, I headed off to a more relaxed bay on the south part of the island. There basically were a bunch of bungalow style hotels, outdoor bars, and dive shops all next to one another. What was interesting about this place is that since nearly everyone is there for diving, it's quiet by 10pm. BWaM...Backpackers With a Mission...a rare thing to see.
I eventually came to the decision that I would indeed capitalize on the cheap diving and signed up for a 2 dive trip for the following morning. Time
to go to bed early. As I was getting into bed, the skies unleashed a rainstorm rivaling any I've ever seen/heard. And apparently it was one that rivaled any storm that my roof had seen before. Just as I was in that semi-sleep state, it felt as if someone turned on a faucet above the bed. The ceiling was leaking in impressive fashion. This wasn't the ideal way to get a good night's sleep before my dives, but after some fast action to save our luggage and move rooms, all was well again. Yet another one of those things that normally would be infuriating, but in this world it just adds to the experience. And afterall, what can I really complain about when paying $6 per night for a bungalow on the beach?
The diving was great and I didn't have any recurrence of my seasickness from Australia...mission accomplished. Tao brought me the diving and relaxation that was promised and now I'm off to Bangkok to make my way to Vietnam where I'll meet up with visitor #4 (mom and dad count as 2) - my buddy Tim!
A few comments on the islands:
- Prices in Phuket
are about 3x what they were elsewhere. Taxis, massages, tours, etc. It was nice there and can be very enjoyable...but I think it's worth it to take a risk outside the standard Thai island experience and give some others a try. Though I'm not sure there are super fancy resorts everywhere else...dunno.
- The bottoms of my feet were sore from the full moon party for the next 4 days. How did cavemen dance & run around all night before shoes were invented?
- Big thanks to Mom and Dad for a coolio week living a fancy life. Though I'm comfortable with all the places I stay (at least the ones with non-brown water) it is certainly nice to have a break from that. And was good to see them as well.
- One more comment about the Full Moon Party...by the end of it all I had been hit on by a woman, a ladyboy (figure it out), a bi-sexual, and a gay dude. I'd say that covers the gamut.
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maddi wisler
non-member comment
Would love for you to bring me home a elephant! I am so jealous that you were able to take a nap with one. Your pictures are awesome. Love, Maddi