Blogs from Ko Tarutao Marine NP, South-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 2

We got off the ferry on the island of Ko Tarutao, a national park area. One of the things Tarutao is known for is a prison that was on the island. They actually had one prison for political prisoners and one for regular prisoners. Apparently the main security on the island was deadly saltwater crocodiles and Sharks. However, there were escape attempts, some successful, and eventually a mutiny where guards joined with prisoners and got into piracy in the area. Many prisoners died of malaria as well. Sounds lovely doesn't it? That's why we went there, figured we'd avoid all the tourists. Well, we certainly avoided the crowds! All the vendors at Pak Bara tried to tell us there would be nowhere to stay on Tarutao except tents, which we were willing to do, and told ... read more

Sawatdee, everyone! Sawatdee means hello, not some Thai vulgarity, I promise - or do I… We are at present BACK in Bangkok @ Lily’s house. We arrived yesterday afternoon after some brutally long travel, but I’ll get to that later. Since the last blog I posted, we have since disappeared to one of Thailand’s National Marine Parks located west of the Thai-Malaysia border, Tarutao National Marine Park, for about a week and a half (10 days or so). I’m pumped on coffee, loads of green curry, and have a gang of time on my hands (we have two more days here till we fly to Italy). SO…we all know what that entails: a ludicrously extensive blog and a horde of pictures. Boo-yah. Adventures in Hat Yai ---After posting a blog @ an internet café, I returned ... read more

Wednesday: Today we didn't do anything exciting. Rapidly approching the end of our month visa we decided to do a "visa run" to Malaysia which meant 13 hours of travelling on a minibus, 2 ferries and 3 local buses. This meant travelling from Ko Lanta to Trang to Hat Yai to Malaysia border, then back to Hat Yai. Massively tired when we got back!! Thrusday: We made our way to Pak Barra so that we could get to the Tarutao National Marine Park. It's meant to be the least discovered islands in Thailand, so thought it might be worth a shout! We got to Pak Bara early in the morning and Fats did some seriously good haggling with a really funny ticket tout, meaning we could actually get over to the islands and back again ... read more

Next destination wasn't far from the Thale Ban National Park - Ko Tarutao just off the West coast of the most southern point of Thailand. The journey to the pier by songthaew was easier and cheaper than expected and we had time for breakfast after buying our tickets. When our departure time was approaching the guy who sold us our tickets led us to a boat where we had to walk across a plank balanced between the pier and the boat (slightly worrying when carrying my bag and feeling slightly top-heavy). We got ourself some seats and waited as the boat filled up. Only when the boat was just about to pull away did the bloke checking our tickets informed us that because it was a national holiday the island was full so the boat was ... read more

We freakin slept in! Too many vodka pineapples the night before?!! Amanda set the alarm clock the night before and it didn't go off--we still don't know why--quite the mystery. But considering it was a travel day, i wouldn't have expected anything less. We literally ran w/ our packs to the ferry terminal that was to take us to Langkawi. Our reservation was for the cheaper boat at 8:30 am (had to be there at 8am) and we didn't hit the pavement till 8:20 and obviously missed the boat. Luckily there was another one at 8:45 and hopped on to start the travel day w/ Thailand as our destination. We had the whole upper deck to ourselves and took a nap. At Langkawi we bought our next ferry boat for Satun, Thailand, got some lunch and ... read more